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Niagara Falls
Thursday, February 6, 2025
First of Zalepa’s open houses sparks debate on roundabout
Cal Cochrane argues with Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa toward the end of Thursday's open house in St. Davids. JULIA SACCO

Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa’s first installment of the village open house series ended in dramatics with residents accusing Zalepa of poor leadership. 

Toward the end of Thursday’s session at the District 2 Fire Station in St. Davids, resident Cal Cochrane and some other people in the crowd urged Zalepa to rethink the St. Davids roundabout. 

“The people of St. Davids do not want a roundabout,” Cochrane said to Zalepa during a heated back-and-forth.

Around 50 people were in attendance at the meeting, billed by the town as one of five “village visits” being held this winter. A small group of five raised their voices at the lord mayor.

A petition against the roundabout set at the intersection of York and Four Mile Creek roads organized by the St. Davids Ratepayers Association has amassed more than 1,200 signatures thus far. 

During the Q&A feedback session at Zalepa’s open house, some residents urged the lord mayor to hold a straw vote during the meeting to see who votes in favour of the roundabout. 

Zalepa denied prods from the audience and said the number of signatures on the petition does not represent everyone in Niagara-on-the-Lake. 

When Cochrane asked the lord mayor why he was not listening to the residents, Zalepa said, “There’s a lot of other people to listen to.”

“I represent the 19,000 people that live in this town,” Zalepa said.

Louanne Rudisuela is a member of the ratepayers association and helped acquire some of the physical signatures on the petition against the roundabout. 

“All of Niagara-on-the-Lake has a population of 19,000, but St. Davids is much smaller than that, so 1,200 represents quite a few people,” she told The Lake Report.

Rudisuela said the 1,200 signatures were not difficult to get and collecting them was done in a matter of months. 

The people of St. Davids feel they are not being listened to, she said.

Moving forward with contentious developments is no easy task, said Zalepa.

“It’s the most challenging thing for council to decide — when a lot of people want one thing and a lot of people want another thing,” he said. 

Explanations weren’t sufficient for some residents in the crowd and Zalepa encouraged them to take matters into their own hands if they were not satisfied. 

“If you want to do something differently, you can put your name on a ballot and go knock on a bunch of doors and get yourself elected,” Zalepa said. 

The next open houses are scheduled in Glendale on Jan. 16, Virgil on Feb. 3, Old Town on Feb. 18 and Queenston on Feb. 20. Each will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Along with a discussion on the roundabout, Zalepa and other town staff made a brief presentation at the start of the meeting, highlighting a number of items on the town’s 2025 agenda. 

Zalepa reviewed information on the town’s strategic plan, gave a budget update, summarized the official plan and provided a spotlight on the community of St. Davids, before taking questions. 

Input from these village open houses will help council make informed decisions throughout the year, he said.

“It’s meetings like this where we are going to start talking about (issues) and then we will hear your thoughts and put it all together while we work,” he said. 

“If there is an idea and it has groundswell and good support then it’s something we have to think about,” Zalepa said. 

Rudisuela told The Lake Report she plans to find out the population breakdowns of each village in NOTL and get signatures from a more representative number of St. Davids residents.

“My argument is if we had 1,200 or 1,400 names out of 3,000 or 5,000, that’s a lot of names,” she said.

“I’m willing to go door to door.”

juliasacco@niagaranow.com

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