These Niagara Municipal Election Results Offer Lots Of New Faces -And A New And Uncertain Ride For Our Region’s Future

By Doug Draper

Well, it was an interesting municipal election night in Niagara – and for some a scary one a few nights prior to Halloween.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters

It was also one that saw a greater turnover of faces at the regional council level than we have possibly seen since regional government was established in Niagara more than four decades ago.

Just to give a few examples, Bob Gale, a Niagara Falls businessman, owner of those Gale Gas Bars you may have fueled up at and the guy that blew the whistle, a few years back, at some nefarious practices going on at the Niagara Parks Commission, will be going to regional council as a representative for Niagara Falls.

Mayor Vance Badawey of Port Colborne, who decided to run for a regional council seat this time with a possible eye to the regional chair seat, will not be back. He lost to Port Colborne regional councillor incumbent David Barrick, who is also hand-picked about a year ago by board members of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority for a management position in that public agency.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Lord Mayor Dave Eke will not be going back to regional council either. Despite his championing of a giant Outlet Mall now operating and growing in what was an open field in the west end of his municipality, he lost his job to newcomer Patrick Dart.

Mayor Barry Sharpe of Welland, a city with a record of chewing mayors out for reasons that often have to do with missteps in trying to revitalize a community that has lost its gravity through decades of mis-steps, has also been ousted by one of the city’s councillors, Frank Campion. And good luck to his mayorship, given the continued struggling state of that community.

Wayne Redekop, following an eight year hiatus and a failed run as an NDP candidate in a provincial election race in the Niagara Falls riding, has been re-elected mayor of Fort Erie, replacing Doug Martin, who decided to give politics a rest.

Of course, there is also Walter Sendzik, a former manager of the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, replacing retiring Brian McMullan as mayor of Niagara’s largest municipality of St. Catharines.

And the list of new faces that will be sitting in the regional council chambers in the weeks to come, along with veterans like Tim Rigby and others go on.

What will be most interesting in the weeks to come is who will line up to be chosen by fellow councillors to serve as Niagara’s regional chair for the next four years.

I assume Gary Burroughs, who won his regional council seat back in Niagara-on-the-Lake and has served as chair for the past four years, will ask the council for a second term as chair. But there are possible challengers for the position here, and I only speculate, like Niagara Falls regional councillor Bart Maves and Bill Hodgson, the mayor for Lincoln who successfully ran for a regional council seat this time. There is also Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn, who has won a second term and has served as the chair of Niagara Region’s corporate services committee that has quite a bit to do with the regional government’s budget.

Whoever gets Niagara’s regional government’s top job for the next four years can have a great deal to do with setting the course for what happens around key issues like public transit, urban development, public health care, policing, waste and wastewater management, our relationship with our southern Ontario and cross-border neighbours, and the list goes on.

Niagara At Large will do its best to keep you informed and invite you to participate in the conversation around where we go from here through your comments below and any editorial comments others in our community may wish to share.

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