Betty Disero, a former Toronto city councillor who in 1991 briefly ran for mayor, has landed the top job in a completely different community.Disero was recently elected “lord mayor” of Niagara-on-the-Lake, as the scenic tourist town calls its top municipal politician. She became the first woman to hold that post, after four years as a town councillor who made her mark warning residents about the hazards of uncontrolled development.The town of more than 17,000, famous for wineries and the Shaw theatre festival, will also have a female “deputy lord mayor,” since Clare Cameron garnered the most votes for council.In some ways, Disero said in an interview, the issues she’ll face in her four-year term mirror those of the much bigger boom town she left in 2009.“This town is growing so much more quickly than before, so we’re starting to have, believe it or not, issues with traffic congestion, overdevelopment, losing some of the character of what used to be here,” Disero said, adding that in other ways Niagara-on-the-Lake is very different from Toronto.“Toronto is not a farming community. We are a farming community here,” she said. “I’m learning about irrigation, the need for protecting bees, certain types of herbicides and pesticides — trying to balance all of that and the need for safe passage for pedestrians while allowing farmers to farm properly.”Disero entered politics in the early 1980s as a Toronto separate school trustee, jumping in 1985 to council in the Davenport ward by defeating 25-year incumbent Joe Piccininni.She was a major force at city hall for almost 18 years, the last six on the council of the new amalgamated city, with posts including chair of the Toronto Harbour Commission and later the TTC. Then mayor Mel Lastman appointed Disero, a Liberal able to work across political lines, to a task force with a goal of diverting waste from landfill after Lastman’s plan to ...
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