Lori Lococo’s leadership is what we need. City Council and staff should work for all residents and businesses; no one should slip through the cracks. Her vision is to make that a reality through transparency and hard work.

Here is a highly recommended recent VIZ SHOW interview with Lori that will get you acquainted with her ideas about tackling some of the big challenges facing us.

It’s an hour long, but worth every second. It lays out what she will do as Mayor. Have a listen!

  Here are the first three planks in the Lori Lococo platform. Look for more in the coming days.

Affordability – It’s all about the City’s Budget affecting your budget

Lori will introduce zero based budgeting to the City, an idea that she has championed at Council in the past. It uses common sense to look at all the projects that we need to spend on and want to spend on, how much do they cost, justifying the cost, and what value the resident is receiving.

Let’s look at the budget as a whole instead of one project at a time. Your tax dollars deserve that respect and real thoughtful consideration before they are spent. And you deserve a more direct say on how your tax dollars are spent – through participatory budgeting and other options to give feedback, such as town halls, surveys and information sessions. More on that under Transparency and Good Governance

Community Improvement Programs (CIPs) are one of the City’s major tools for improving our neighbourhoods. Businesses and property owners receive tax incentives, grants and loans to improve buildings and create jobs through new investments through environmental sustainability, urban intensification, and economic prosperity. Are we getting real value for your tax dollars? Are the objectives being achieved? The programs need to be verified and not just assumed to be achieving their goals. As Mayor, I would advocate for in-depth return on investment reviews

Infrastructure – Common Sense and Sustainable Development

Expanding urban sprawl is expensive! Extending services into new areas of the City, like water, gas, hydro, roads, sewers, transit and policing, takes money away from what we can spend on existing neighbourhoods. Niagara Falls has a lot of “brownfields”, large areas of unused derelict buildings and spaces. It is only common sense and less expensive to develop in these under-utilized areas that already have existing infrastructure.

This leaves the City with more resources to properly maintain roads, sewers and buildings. Delaying repairs or replacements are more expensive later.

Responsible development means being a good partner with industrial manufacturing. We are experiencing conflict with industry because some residential neighbourhoods were built too close. This must stop.

Provincial Responsibilities – Address Downloading to Cash Strapped Municipalities

We need to work with the Provincial Government regarding the downloading of their responsibilities. The City and Region have had to take them on without the resources to do so.

Homelessness, mental health and addiction are a serious concern and the way we are responding to it is not working. The resources that can assist these concerns are limited and currently operate at their maximum capacity. The need is greater than the resources that are available. The City can play a part in the solution, but it has to be largely funded by the Province.

In recent years Niagara Falls has taken on worthy ambitious projects like the new hospital that should have more financial backing from the Province. Instead, the Niagara Falls taxpayer is paying for more than their fair share for what is a Regional service and Provincial responsibility.

A new Niagara Falls Hospice sounds wonderful until you realize that it is not within our mandate or legislated authority. There is already a system in place and should not cost taxpayers to build or operate it. Should we advocate strongly to make it happen? YES. Should we take that job on ourselves as a City? No.

Next up, Transparency and Good Governance – Watch for it in the coming days