Mayoral candidate taking business approach
RICHARD STEPHENS says he wants to see St. Catharines live up to its potential.
The candidate for mayor said he’s seen the city fail to do that year after year.
“I’m retired, but I’m more than happy to go back to work to straighten out the City of St. Catharines,” he said Monday.
Stephens, 62, was born in Ottawa and grew up in Calgary. After earning his bachelor of commerce and MBA, he said he went on to work for an oil company in Denver, Colorado before joining his family’s oil business in Toronto in the early 80s.
He said he started his own bottled water company in 1986 in Woodbridge and continued in that industry, running Laurentian Spring Valley, Danone Waters of Canada and Eden Springs in the UK. He was president and CEO of Aquaterra Corporation in Mississauga from 2006 until 2010 and then became the owner and operator of an orchard and vineyard in Beamsville, which he sold this year.
A Port Dalhousie resident for 12 years, he said he’s done business all over the world and knows how to make things work.
He said his approach as mayor would be to run the city as a business.
“It’s not that complicated and we shouldn’t make it complicated. It’s a small city that’s needs to have clear direction, good management,” he said Monday.
“It’s got so much going for it. It should be easy to make this city blossom.”
Stephens says St. Catharines shouldn’t be the “economic backwater” that it is and shouldn’t be out marketed by cities like Welland which landed the General Electric plant. He said he thinks
the city is the hardest place to do any development in the province and there’s room for improvement.
Among his other goals are cutting the city’s 12 councillors down to six and halting what he claims is a parks department “war on trees.”
Stephens joins incumbent mayor Walter Sendzik, Johnny Tischler and Tunde Soniregun in the race. Nominations close July 27.