Miele to run for Vaughan regional councillor

Vaughan Weekly
March 12, 2014
By Angela Gismondi

Frank Miele has a lot of big ideas to move the City of Vaughan forward.

Miele, Vaughan’s former Commissioner of Economic Development and Corporate Communications, has registered as a candidate for Vaughan regional councillor in the upcoming municipal election.

With 35 years of senior level experience in municipal government, Miele believes he is the right person for the job. Miele said he is passionate about the community, professional, civic-minded and brings fresh ideas and a new way of thinking to the table.

“The main focus of why I want to run is about three issues - traffic, taxes and trust,” said Miele. “I believe these are the three main issues in our community. I have the experience, skill set and track record to get the job done right. I believe I am the right candidate for the position of regional councillor.”

Miele has been a Vaughan resident for the past 25 years. He and his wife raised their four children in the community. He is now a professor at both York University and Seneca College.

“The knowledge I have gained as a senior municipal executive will enable me to serve and lead the community with a results-first approach,” said Miele.

Real solutions are needed to solve the city’s traffic gridlock problems, said Miele. He suggested something as simple as synchronizing traffic lights could save commuters precious minutes every day, time which they can spend with their families. Those minutes add up to close to an hour every week.

“Traffic is very complex,” Miele explained. “There are many solutions but it takes some long-term thinking as opposed to short term band-aid solutions.”

Miele is particularly concerned about intensification of residential projects being implemented in the city and their impact on transit.

“The higher the densities, the higher the traffic will be,” explained Miele. “The onus should be on the development community. Their plans should include what transportation infrastructure they’re going to be proposing. In collaboration with the City and Regional staff, they should come up with a solution that will support their development or else lower the density.”

Also on his list of priorities is helping young people get jobs in the community.

“The youth of today are highly educated,” Miele pointed out, adding he thinks the development charges for the commercial sector in Vaughan are too high and preventing businesses from locating corporate head offices in the city. “We need to attract knowledge-based businesses and encourage those businesses to locate in Vaughan. As well, we need to expedite the development process for these businesses and cut out the red tape.”

In terms of taxes, Miele said they should be much lower.

“Everybody talks about this, politicians promise that they will restrict the tax increase to the inflation rate, but not once in four years did this actually take place,” said Miele, adding the city and region property tax increase for 2013 was 4.7 per cent and the rate of inflation was 0.9 per cent.

He is particularly concerned about seniors.

“How are they going to make ends meet if council can’t keep taxes under the inflation rate,” said Miele.

“That’s a lot of money for someone who is on a fixed pension. Maybe we need to freeze the tax increase for these seniors.”

He also suggested that the City could benefit from partnerships with the private sector.

“I think we need to think outside the box and collaborate with the private sector,” Miele stated. “We need to be innovative and go beyond the traditional form of tax revenues.”

One example he used is a project he proposed when he was the economic development commissioner at the City of Vaughan. Miele explained there are companies that are prepared to come into the municipality and replace all the (25,288) street lamps with energy efficient lights. According to Miele, the City would see a return on investment from this project within two-and-a-half years and savings millions of dollars to the taxpayers.

“Let’s be creative,” said Miele. “Let’s see how we can save and conserve just like every citizen out there looks at how they can save and conserve in their own homes.”

Miele has some serious concerns about trust, especially when it comes to the $33 million in cost overruns to build the new City Hall.

“We as citizens have been in the dark on how the money was overspent,” said Miele. “Thirty-three million dollars has gone up in smoke because of mismanagement.”

If elected, Miele wants to focus on engaging the entire community in a real discussion about alternative approaches and priorities in Vaughan.