Sandra O’Connor says another term on a smaller Niagara-on-the-Lake council would mean more work, more pressure and more direct calls from residents.
She still wants back in.
Incumbent O’Connor is running again for town council, saying her next campaign will build on the same themes she says guided her this term: trust in council, open decision-making, resident consultation, environmental protection and balanced growth.
She said in May she was leaning toward another term, but did not file right away.
“I was busy doing council stuff and I wanted to get my mind straight about what my platform was going to be.”
That platform, O’Connor said, starts with restoring confidence in local government.
“I’m going to basically build on what I worked on this past term,” she said. “Some of the overarching things are to build on the integrity of council, the trust in council, the confidence of the public.”
If re-elected, O’Connor said she will push for more information to be available to the public, such as getting site plans posted online so residents can see what is being proposed.
“We have to develop more confidence in the public in the decisions we’re making. We haven’t been doing that enough,” said O’Connor.
She said developers and residents “shouldn’t be one versus the other.”
“We need to have more balance.”
O’Connor said the biggest threat facing the town is governance changes at the Niagara Region, including the province’s plan to appoint the future regional chair and new strong chair powers.
She said an unelected chair is “not democratic” and warned NOTL could lose influence if larger municipalities can outvote the town’s concerns.
“Other municipalities can outvote Niagara-on-the-Lake’s concerns,” she said. “I’m concerned about the rural aspect, the agricultural aspect for Niagara-on-the-Lake.”
That rural character and the town’s cultural, natural and agricultural heritage, she said, is one of NOTL’s greatest strengths.
“To maintain that is critical for our economy,” she said. “These are our roots, and if we don’t protect our roots, then we can’t advance and grow appropriately.”
O’Connor said she looks at council decisions “through an environmental lens” and has pushed for stronger flood and stormwater criteria, a forestry management plan and more attention to natural assets in the town’s asset management planning.
She said she also wants more advisory committees, including a budget audit committee, and more consultation with NOTL’s communities.
“Not just in Old Town, but in all of our villages and our rural areas,” she said.
O’Connor also pointed to seniors and health care as issues council needs to keep in mind, saying seniors were not mentioned in the town’s strategic plan and that she helped push for a nurse practitioner for non-rostered patients and visitors.
On the old hospital site, O’Connor said she wants to “listen to what the residents have said.”
Residents, she said, have spoken about wanting the site to be used as “a community hub or something for the community, not for tourists, but for the community.”
She said she is not supporting any one proposal right now because the town is going through a two-step request for proposals process.
“My main objective is to listen to what people have said — we had extensive consultation — and to go with something that benefits the community.”
On the latest development proposal for the Rand Estate, which would building a luxury hotel on the site, O’Connor said she has been told council must treat it as a new application and let the process unfold.
“I have to wait until staff assesses things.”
Her concern, she said, is about how a gated community (a part of the current plan) could affect public views of heritage features and raised concerns about whether tree plans and environmental information are being given enough weight.
But she said she will be watching for whether the proposal follows the previous Ontario Land Tribunal ruling.
“I am going to be looking for compliance with what the (tribunal) has said,” O’Connor said.
As for the new Royal George Theatre, O’Connor said she supports keeping a theatre on Queen Street but voted against the rebuild proposal because of its size.
“In this particular proposal, I have been consistent in stating that I felt that the mass and scale of the building is too large for our heritage area, our main street.”
If elected this fall, she will be joining a smaller council, with six councillors instead of eight.
O’Connor said that will not make the job simpler — with fewer councillors, she said, more residents will be contacting individual members of council.
“It’s going to be more work for the councillors that are voted in.”
