MORE SUSTAINABLE

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Janice has, throughout her 13 years on Council, been a vocal advocate of the need to preserve our precious farmland, and to protect the wetlands and woodlots which help purify our air and water. She recognizes the importance of maintaining biodiversity, and has advocated for protection of creeks, forests and other natural features which are the habitat of rapidly disappearing species.

This term, as a Co-chair of the Park in the City Committee, Janice promoted the importance of greening and sustainability initiatives (instead of just beautification), and on planting trees and perennials rather than annuals.

The Committee spearheaded the elimination of sales of beverages in plastic bottles at municipally-owned facilities. Janice was extensively involved behind the scenes in that effort. She notes that, besides the positive environmental impacts of this initiative:

“We pay, through our property tax bill, landfilling and recycling costs. By keeping plastic beverage bottles out of waste stream, we reduce these costs. This accomplishes the goal of keeping property taxes low, and frees up tax monies to repair aging water and sewer infrastructure and improve the delivery of municipal services.”

Janice recently promoted other Zero Waste initiatives, including Ministry of the Environment’s “Toward A Zero Waste Future.” She knows it is reducing is more important than recycling: The best way to deal with a ton of waste is not to create it in the first place.

She was also proactive this term in garnering Council support for full Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for the Blue Box recycling program. If implemented, it will make those who produce consumer packaging, rather than taxpayers, responsible for paying the costs of waste disposal or recycling of all consumer goods. Not only will that relieve a burden on the taxpayer, but it will encourage producers to tread more lightly on this Earth.

ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY

Janice has also, throughout her 13 years on Council, been concerned about fiscal responsibility and has tried to be a budget watchdog. Despite requests for greater detail on proposed spending, discretionary expenditures remained firmly buried in departmental budgets.

Janice and colleague Carolynn Ioannoni were finally successful, this year, in convincing Council to enable a closer scrutiny of the operating budget. Greater detail reveals questionable expenditures and allows the worth, to the general community, of proposed spending to be critically examined.

Janice isn’t afraid to trim spending on marginal items if there are insufficient funds for core services. Reduced spending on maintaining roads, sewers, water lines and other infrastructure doesn’t save money. It just defers expenditures to future years, when the same items usually cost more, or results in costly urgent fixes. Reductions in operating expenses of marginal benefit to the community offer real costs savings, year after year.

Janice notes:
We are not financially prepared for unplanned expenditures on urgent fixes. Reserves are what cushion taxpayers against unexpected blows such as recessions, multi-million dollar liability payouts, and other large unanticipated expenditures. Ours have been badly depleted. We cannot continue like this indefinitely. Tough calls have to be made.

I strongly believe that we should focus on taking care of our core services. To do this properly while rebuilding our reserves and keeping taxes down as much as possible, we need to prune expenditures which are not essential to serving the community effectively. Can you see another way?

I have a vision of Niagara Falls remaining an affordable place to live and invest in the future. I want to continue working to bring fiscal responsibility to Council's spending and to ensure that Niagara Falls remains an affordable place to live and invest in the future. To do so, I need YOUR support!

Safer | Greener | More Sustainable