Dear editor:

It feels like the electioneering has already started for next fall’s municipal election in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

A few weeks ago, Al Bisback wrote a letter rightly observing that most, if not all, planning application decisions seem to be favouring the developers these days (“Letter: Lack of scrutiny in planning department approvals,” Sept. 4)

the following week, Al was attacked by deputy lord mayor Erwin Wiens as having been incompetent in the previous council (“Letter: Setting the record straight on planning in Niagara-on-the-Lake,” Sept. 11)

Then, in quick succession, council approves two large settlements which seem to call into question the actions of the previous council members, intimating incompetence, if not outright malfeasance, neither of which were proven in court since the settlements end the litigation (“Town pays $225K settlement to former property owner over ‘misuse of power,’” Sept. 18, “Town settles another lawsuit, pays $1M to builder over development freeze,” Sept. 25)

Of course, the presumed overspending on legal fees caused by the actions of previous council is blamed for the infrastructure deficit, which has nothing to do with the need for ever-increasing infrastructure spending to accommodate the new development in town.

Witnessing the never-ending line of trucks exiting the Parliament Oak site, I wonder what road repairs will be necessary in the next year?

It seems to me in the last election cycle, the knives didn’t come out until later in the year or early 2022 when the rumours started circulating about the mayor’s husband and the mayor unethically circumventing the rights of their neighbour who was going to sue the town and them (“Secret recording claims Disero knew about husband’s complaint,” Oct. 20, 2022).

Funny how that seemed to disappear from the news after she lost the election.

We also learn today that the town had received an application for a permit to truck soil away from the Parliament Oak site early in September, which was still in process when the developer began excavating and trucking soil away at the beginning of last week, with no permit and continued in defiance of a stop-work order (“Developer ignores stop-work order,” Sept. 25).

Interestingly, I know of several enquiries made last week that weren’t even informed of the existence of the application until after it was posthumously issued on Friday afternoon.

One would have thought the town would have simply stopped processing the permit application and demanded the illegal activity stop before resuming consideration of a permit, instead of issuing it four days after the infraction began.

I hope at least the $2,000 was collected in fines for the four days of illegal trucking.

It will be an interesting year!