John Belvedere’s triumph over tradition
In essence, Pointe-Claire’s mayor-elect John Belvedere has been campaigning for the job for five years. On Sunday, Belvedere was elected with 60 per cent of the vote, putting an end to the 104-year uninterrupted streak of residents electing a mayor who first served as a councillor. Former councillor Aldo Iermieri placed second, with 30 per cent of the vote.
It was the second time that Belvedere had taken a run at the job.
“In 2013, I really only got started on my campaign one year in advance,” he said, Monday. “I’ve had four years this time. I talked to people, attended council meetings and public consultations, went door to door, listened to community groups. It was four years of exposure for me.”
Pointe-Claire has an industrial park, a major shopping centre, two commercial “villages,” two commuter-train stops and new residential developments popping up along the east-west Hymus Blvd. corridor. It will also have two light-rail stations when the Réseau électrique métropolitain (REM) network is built.
“The biggest concern looking to the future when the REM comes here is traffic circulation and parking,” Belvedere said. “We must plan in advance so that the integration is smooth.”
Belvedere said an important part of the puzzle will be to encourage residents to leave their cars at home and use active and public transit — bikes and buses — to get around.
He said that might involve adjusting bus routes so that buses routinely stop at the light-rail stations and that the network of bicycle paths the city has already begun to forge should be verified for efficiency when it comes to accessing the train stations.
One group of citizens living on Brigadoon Ave. fought long and hard to oppose the previous council’s move to have a bike path cut through what had become these homeowners’ backyards. Technically city land, the homeowners had been allowed to grow gardens and trees over decades.
Work on the bike path was scheduled to start this fall.
“What we need to ask is why is it necessary for the bike path to be put there,” Belvedere said.
Belvedere said an important issue for many Pointe-Claire residents is the frequency of garbage pickup during the summer months. People complained to him that once every two weeks is not enough when the temperature rises.
“We have to hit the reset button on that one,” Belvedere said. “In the short term, I would like to see weekly garbage pickup during the hot months. But we also need to educate people better about composting.”
Belvedere also wants to forge a more productive relationship with the Montreal Agglomeration Council. As do all the de-merged suburbs, Pointe-Claire pays millions of dollars every year to the Agglo to pay for services. But the suburbs have no power in the decision-making process and that is a sore point for all the mayors.