HELPING LOCAL BUSINESS
Janice realizes the importance of local business to the wider community. She has served as Council’s representative on the Main & Ferry BIA continuously since 1997, and it was her urging which led those business owners to pay for a Community Improvement Plan (CIP) study. This term she also served as Council’s representative on the Lundy’s Lane BIA. She recognizes that a high volume of tourists pass through these two areas and understands their importance in leaving a favourable impression on our visitors.
Janice has been proactive in supporting the efforts of those boards to create attractive physical environments and supportive business environments for the locally-owned small businesses which operate there. She is very excited that the Main & Ferry BIA’s new street lights and other street furniture, toward which the BIA has scrimped and saved for the past several years, will soon be installed.
Janice is as eager to help small businesses as she is residents. She recognized the unfairness inherent in forcing landlords to pay delinquent tenants’ water bills, when the landlords were not a party to the contract and could not even access information about the payment status. Janice played a major role in righting this wrong, and protecting landlords from being held accountable for other people’s spending.
Janice was also heavily involved in trying to help struggling motel owners in their efforts to stay afloat. After meetings between the business owners and City staff revealed that, despite the severity of the problems, there was nothing the municipality could do to help, she prepared a resolution to the Province requesting that an existing vacancy rebate program for commercial properties be extended to the accommodations sector to address the unfairness of the current tax system to motels closed during off-season (winter) months. If the Province makes the changes which this resolution supported by City Council requests, it will help motel operators citywide.
Janice is also strongly supportive of the local agricultural sector. She is an active participant on the recently-formed Farmers’ Market Vendors’ Committee for the market held year-round on Saturday mornings at Sylvia Place. (For more information on the market, visit http://www.niagarafalls.ca/about_niagara_falls/farmers-market.asp).
Janice has also been a strong advocate for reducing operating expenses of marginal benefit to the community. She recognizes that Council needs to keep property taxes affordable in order to help small businesses thrive throughout our community.
Other areas in which Janice has played leadership roles in recent years include …
Environment |Transportation | Animal Welfare | Heritage | Helping Local Business| Protecting Seniors | 
