Dear editor:

Reading The Lake Report’s survey on Sept. 10 about what is on voters’ minds, I was struck less by the differences in people’s concerns than by how much they have in common (“NOTL voters lay out priorities“).

A farmer worried about drainage may appear to have little in common with an Old Town resident worried about traffic. A family in St. Davids concerned about flooding may seem far removed from someone in Virgil concerned about taxes, or a resident worried about development in Glendale.

But follow almost any of these problems far enough and the paths begin to cross.

A planning decision affects how much infrastructure we need. Infrastructure affects municipal spending. Spending affects taxes. More pavement changes stormwater runoff. Traffic affects rural roads as well as village streets. Development decisions affect housing, farmland, drainage and the character of our communities.

The boundaries on our map don’t contain the consequences of our decisions.

That may be one of the most important things for us to remember as we think about Niagara-on-the-Lake’s future.

We sometimes talk as though there are competing constituencies here: farmers versus townspeople, Old Town versus the other communities, tourism businesses versus residents, newcomers versus longtime residents.

I think that framing gets us into trouble.

Farmers need roads that work. Families need infrastructure that works. Businesses need a community people want to visit. We should continue to invite guests, but that doesn’t mean we have to invite more traffic.

Residents need a tax base capable of supporting the services we expect. And all of us depend on sensible planning decisions made with consequences measured in decades rather than council terms.

There will certainly be disagreements about individual projects and priorities. There should be. But perhaps we could judge our major municipal decisions against three fairly simple tests:

Are we getting good value for residents’ money?

Are we reducing unnecessary pressure on our roads and infrastructure rather than adding to it?

And are we strengthening the whole community rather than solving one area’s problem by creating another area’s problem?

Those questions apply just as readily to a drainage project in the countryside as to development in Glendale, traffic in St. Davids or parking in Old Town.

That is also why this election should be about records as well as promises.

We should look carefully at the decisions the current council has made, compare them with what new candidates are proposing, and ask which approach is most likely to serve all of Niagara-on-the-Lake over the long run.

Do the research, then make your own choice.

These Lake Report interviews suggest that residents already understand many of these connections, even if we describe the problems differently.

Perhaps the challenge isn’t choosing whose concerns matter most.

It is recognizing that they all matter because, sooner or later, they become everyone’s concerns.

Bruce Gitelman
NOTL