One key change at Vaughan city hall after Monday's vote

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 30, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

With just one new face on city council for the upcoming term, mayor-elect Maurizio Bevilacqua’s plan for the next four years is to stay the course.

“I think you have to continue in the same governance style and that is consensus-building and leading in a way that is consistent with the values, principles and beliefs of the citizens of Vaughan,” the 54-year-old veteran politician said in an interview Tuesday afternoon, a day after winning a second mandate by garnering nearly 80 per cent of the vote.

“That’s really been the success that I’ve been able to have over the past four years is to listen to the people of the city because, in them, I find my major source of inspiration and, quite frankly, many of the answers to the challenges our city faces.”

Bevilacqua said he hopes to “advance the transit file” and address some key social issues such as affordable housing during this term.

“When you’re given a mandate as I have in the past two elections, you also need to begin to address, what I often say, is moving the city forward without leaving anyone behind,” he said. “I’m very supportive of implementing a secondary suite (basement apartments) strategy to provide housing for people who are being shut out of the housing market.”

Joining Bevilacqua at the council table will be incumbents Michael Di Biase, who will serve as deputy mayor, Gino Rosati (regional councillor), Marilyn Iafrate (Maple/Kleinburg), Tony Carella (Woodbridge West), Rosanna DeFrancesca (Woodbridge East), Sandra Yeung Racco (Concord/Thornhill North) and Alan Shefman (Thornhill).

The new face on council next term, Mario Ferri, really isn’t all that new.

Ferri has been out of office the last four years, after being edged out in 2010 by Deb Schulte, the only incumbent to lose her seat during Monday’s election.

But before that he sat on council for 13 years, serving two terms as Ward 1 councillor and two terms as a regional councillor.

Bevilacqua has known Ferri since the 1980s and expects he’ll fit in well.

“Of course, he enters a council and a style of governance that is very different than the one he was part of and that’s going to require adjustments, but I’m very confident that he will be able to adjust to our style of government, which is stable, effective and places people first,” Bevilacqua said. “He has the qualities to make a contribution to the City of Vaughan, of that I have no doubt.”

For his part, Ferri said one of his first goals is to implement measures aimed at easing the city’s crippling traffic congestion.

“There is new (traffic signal synchronization) technology that we can look at that will, at least in the short-term, help somewhat,” he said during a telephone interview on election night. “Studies that were done in Toronto show that this particular system was able to improve travel time by 25 percent."

Bevilacqua said tackling traffic congestion is a big challenge, but major infrastructure projects expected to be completed, or underway, in the next two to five years - such as the dedicated bus lanes (rapidways) along Hwy. 7, the subway and Hwy. 427 extension - will help.

“That’s (traffic congestion) obviously an issue that I heard throughout the campaign, and prior to that, and it needs to be addressed,” he said. “That requires funding, it requires investment and, in order to achieve that, you need to have excellent co-operation with the provincial and federal governments, which is something I brought to the table back in 2010."

As for Schulte, who fell short of retaining her seat by about 4,000 votes (according to unofficial results), she says her loss was the result of a combination of factors, including low voter turnout, which was about 30 per cent, and anonymous attack ads targeting her.

“So many people are calling me to say how sorry they are that they didn’t get more engaged because they just thought I was a shoo-in. They thought my reputation was so solid that it really was not going to be touched,” she said. “And the attack ads, unfortunately, were effective. ...What was done undermines democracy and the apathy in Vaughan allowed it to be successful.”

Despite the loss, Schulte plans to remain active and stay involved with a number of initiatives including: the Greenbelt and Oak Ridges Moraine review; pushing the province to reform the Ontario Municipal Board; heritage protection and “pushing the region to put more money to fix the transportation problems in Vaughan”, among other things.

As for her future in politics, Schulte said it’s too soon to be talking about whether or not she’ll run for municipal office again.

“There is lots of water to go under the bridge, so to speak, between now and then and I have no idea what might come my way or what I might be involved in,” she said. “The only reason I went in, in the first place, was because council was failing us. I went in to use my skills to make a difference and I’ve done that."

The new council will be sworn in Dec. 1.