Dear editor:

The March 12 The Lake Report had an opinion piece regarding amalgamation authored by David Israelson (“If NOTL doesn’t want amalgamation, what do we want?“). He stated:

“To its credit, the Niagara-on-the-Lake Residents Association quickly came up with a position paper opposing amalgamation, based on research into whether it would save NOTL taxpayers money. Hint: it won’t.”

The residents association was contacted regarding this supposed research, and it by and large hadn’t done any current analysis to determine if there might be cost benefits to be had in an amalgamation.

The residents association based its “position” largely on information and studies that were 26-plus years old. There wasn’t any analysis of the financial/infrastructure/economic situation today in Niagara’s municipalities for applicability or relevance. Perhaps they feel that nobody learns from their mistakes and history repeats itself.

Anyway, in my opinion, David Israelson’s conclusion was incorrect and he gave the wrong impression of the the residents association to the readers of The Lake Report.

To be clear, I’m not for amalgamation, (I’m for a ward system where each of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s residential areas are represented by an elected officials based on population) but surely there must be cost savings without an amalgamation. Perhaps some sort of consolidation of services amongst all the municipalities within the Niagara Region?

Harry Schlange (17 years in municipal governments) has stated that there were $250 million of savings to be had through some sort of a consolidation process.

We know that developers are utilizing our existing infrastructure but are not financing the needed infrastructure expansions needed to accommodate their developments. We have a massive infrastructure deficit.

The result is NOTL taxpayers are going to foot this infrastructure deficit. We’re doing it now. Cost savings are needed somewhere, or we’re going to be taxed to death.

Gienek Ksiazkiewicz
St. Davids