Brooms and Bat Mann For Niagara Falls City Council

"Clean sweep! Clean sweep! Clean sweep!”

October 17, 2014 was the execution date set for the political careers of the sitting Niagara Falls City Council members.

Throngs of social media pundits and city council hopefuls whipped their followers into frenzy, cocked and ready to unleash a “clean sweep” of the City council chamber.


As the dust settled, the citizens of Niagara Falls realized that instead of the clean sweep, all but one of the incumbents survived and to drive home the point that this is “Incumbent Country”, the voters returned two past/retired councilors to chambers.

Going into the elections, there were 8 city councilors. 6 ran, 5 won.
Shirley Fisher, the single unsuccessful incumbent, had only gained a council spot earlier that year by default when then councilor Wayne Gates transitioned to provincial politics. Ms. Fisher, being the 9^th place holder from the 2010 elections, she was slotted into the Gates’s vacated council seat.
Two councilors (W. Bart Maves and Janice Wing) did not seek re-election.

From the electorate standpoint, only 36.7% of the Niagara Falls electorate even bothered to vote.

Niagara Falls municipality uses the ‘at-large” system. To satisfy the electoral requirement for 8 councilors, the voters had added two retired politicians and a popular real estate agent/Olympiad/bar-owner along with the five incumbents to the 2014-2018 city council.

"The at-large system is known to give huge advantages to incumbents and popular personalities"

What may be considered a side-effect of the at-large system is “name-recognititis” That is as a result of being overwhelmed by the amount of candidates, one will simply vote for names they recognize.

This gives the incumbents and popular individuals a considerable advantage over fresh, new faces.

In the case of the 2014 elections, the advantage was so overwhelming that at least one of the newly elected councilors did not even make the effort to run a real campaign. The name was recognizable and familiar enough for it to be checked on the ballot among the 8.

The Mayor on the other-hand, despite a guaranteed landslide win, ran a full-fledged campaign. Financial records show the Mayor raised over $70K during the 2010 election, and in the 2014 elections, he was able to outspent his contenders 40-1.

The overwhelming return of the incumbents and election of popular candidates however can justifiably be credited to the at-large system of municipal governance does provide the advantage to incumbents and candidates who enjoy local popularity.

Denied the superhuman capacity to choose 8 candidates from a pool of 30+ based off performance and substance, the electorate simply puts a mark beside 8 familiar names.

What does this mean for challengers?

It means that persons aspiring to enter the municipal leadership core should find ways to be relevant and popular during the 4 years leading up to elections. Waiting to campaign during the elections in an at-large system has proven to be a colossal waste of time and resources. Consider that the electorate is tasked to elect eight councilors from a roster of thirty-plus candidates. Most people can barely make the decision for one from a roster of (say) four in a ward system, much less eight from thirty-plus??!

Denied the superhuman capacity to choose 8 candidates from a pool of 30+ based off performance and substance, many voters simply mark beside 8 familiar names.
The first 2 to 4 may be deliberate, but it’s difficult to fathom that in general, voters can informatively vote for 8 councilors. This is usually solved by picking familiar names.

As for myself, during the 2014 municipal elections, I attempted to research as much candidates as possible and vote informed. Nonetheless I found it overwhelming and impossible to deliberately vote for eight candidates based off performance and/or substance.

For most candidates, all the civic mindedness seems to have evaporated after the unsuccessful 2014 city council bid.

Think about it. First you need to know 30+ candidates, research, review, follow, understand all 30+, then select 8 based off the information you have.
It is easy to see why most would not bother to vote and of those that vote, the overwhelming majority will vote based on name familiarity.

Advise to City Council hopefuls? If you haven’t started already, start campaigning now.

Technology provides low hanging fruits that never existed a few decades ago.
Hit social media hard and be consistent.
Build a productive community movement.
Blog, share your thoughts.
Be transparent.
Be "civicly" involved and be public about it.

From my observations, some candidates that received my support during the 2014 election campaigns are unlikely to get that support again.

During the campaigns, they were observed as civic champions, and quite active on social media.
They were hopeful, opinionated and visionary.
For most candidates, all the civic mindedness seems to have evaporated after the unsuccessful 2014 city council bid. Ironically, 2018 comes around, and it’s likely that the same batch will re-appear heralding change and lamenting Niagara Falls’ leadership deficiencies.

In my opinion, those are the same folks that; I believe; if elected would simply make matters worse. To me, they appear hungrier and potentially desperate, which is a sad combination for complacency and corruption.

On the other hand, there are some hopefuls from the 2014 campaign that I have noticed are still very active in the community.
One candidate, I’ve noticed is leading the downtown re-vitalizing initiative and a strong advocate for businesses downtown and particularly on Queen Street.

The other was a close runner up who I notice on social media, still advocates for the actual residents of Niagara Falls. (A silver lining is that she might actually get into council prior to 2018 is one of the current councilors make the shift to provincial politics.)

Aside for those two, from my observation, all other 2014 candidates seem to have simply gone silent on the civic front.
Understandably, commitments to family life will take priority, however it would help hopefuls’ chances if there is a familiarly maintained outside of the election campaign itself.
Be the pit-bull that helps citizens to keep council responsive and accountable. Help drive development and growth in the city.
Don’t go to sleep for 4 years then go begging for support when election comes around.

Put in your 4 years of hard work and exercise a consistent commitment to the civic concerns of the community. Maybe then we will see that clean sweep, if needed, of the city chambers.
If that fails, then simply try a name change to Bat Mann or even Super Mann.

On a side note and in fairness to the at-large system, many municipalities using the more popular ward system did return an overwhelming number of incumbents to council and also suffered from low voter turn-out.

Here are some the voter turnout results from a handful of ward system municipalities.

Mississauga 36%.Brampton 36%, Oshawa 26%, Sault Ste Marie 40.9% - all incumbents returned, Ajax (online and Phone in vote allowed) 30% - all incumbents returned.