In the week leading up to the 2026 Municipal Election, we will be featuring profiles for candidates running for Mayor in Niagara's three largest municipalities - St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland.
Today's profile is Gary Graziani, who is running in Welland. Graziani has worked in the building industry in some capacity for over 35 years, including with the City of Welland, City of Niagara Falls and City of Port Colborne. He was born, raised and has lived in Welland his entire life with the exception of when he went to college, and often volunteers serving dinners at St. Kevin's Kitchen and Beyond the Streets.
What is the single biggest issue facing your municipality right now, and what is the first concrete thing you would do as mayor to address it?
I think all the issues are a priority. I've been seeing stuff on taxes and budgeting, homelessness and addiction, as well as infrastructure areas that need to be improved. So, to me, they're all a priority. My focus will be on affordability, which is the taxes and responsible budgeting. So that's part of my action plan and part of my progress moving forward. A lot of the people that I've talked to, or most of them, seniors, and even people that are middle class, and even people that are just starting out, young people who are just starting with new homes, find that affordability is key on their minds moving forward. And in the next four years, I want to be able to work with them on that.
Niagara continues to grow. How should Welland handle new development and housing while making sure infrastructure and services can keep up with that growth?
The phrase out there is "growth matches growth." I go along with that. Infrastructure is important. So, I mean, I'd work with the developers, I work with the city, I work with the residents in those areas where new developments are going to be created. We have to all work together. When there's a new subdivision, a new development, and it inspires growth, you know, everybody has to know what's going on. The communication has to be there, the accountability has to be there, and we have to match the streetscapes, the curbs, the sidewalks, and all the infrastructure that goes hand in hand with that. And we want it to be a pleasant area. We want to make sure they have maybe a park or some amenities that are required if it's a larger development. But obviously, at the end of the day, we want to work together with the citizens, the people involved, which includes the developers, possibly other levels of government, and obviously the city staff and city council, and work together. And as mayor, that would be my approach: to come together, work together, and try to establish something before we go there and just inspire growth. But the growth has to match what the citizens want and what Welland needs and wants.
Property taxes are a major concern for many residents. How would you balance keeping taxes affordable with the need to maintain roads, infrastructure?
That goes hand in hand. So, my proposal, I want to establish a city affordable team. That's what I would call it. And as mayor, I would propose establishing this team and examining all the opportunities to improve in our municipal spending, controlling costs, and addressing affordability concerns throughout the next term of council. My proposal would be to bring all the representatives together. That includes citizens, city council, city staff, the CAO, the mayor, and all the people that are held accountable for that direction of increasing and moving our tax base. And that goes hand in hand with the infrastructure. My purpose would be to work together and review all these areas and identify areas that can help us save. And we want to make sure that the infrastructure goes hand in hand with that, with the development. We don't want to put the taxes on to the taxpayer. The infrastructure should be done by the new development coming in. Usually, they take care of all the infrastructure for that subdivision. And I'd want to work with them and make sure everything's in place before we look at all those areas.
What do you believe Niagara's municipalities and the Region should be doing differently together, and what would you personally do as mayor to improve regional cooperation?
I think as mayor, I represent one part of the municipalities. So obviously, I want to partner with them. I want to work with them. I think where we need areas that would help us in Welland, that we could ask for our partners to work with us, and vice versa. I think we're one region. I think Welland's one city in that region. Like I said, my goal would be to communicate, cooperate, and work together as one region. And like I said, if we need areas to improve on and we need assistance from other municipalities in our region, let's work together to see if we can help each other out. And we would do the same thing with our neighbours and our neighbouring municipalities.
If elected, what is one thing you would change about how your municipality operates that residents would actually notice within your first year?
I really want to focus on affordability. I also want to focus on taking care of the homeless issue that we have here in Welland. I know it's grown. It's become a concern to many citizens. So affordability and taking care of the homeless would be my priorities in the first year of office. Working on controlling the taxes and budgeting, seeing if we can look at areas where we can help and reduce, and seeing if we can work with our taxes and see if we can, in our budgeting, find areas to help improve and help benefit the citizens as well. And then, the homeless, I want to help people that need help the most. That's always been my mandate. As mayor, like I said, I want to work with local government, also local organizations, and see if we can help our people that need help.
Four years from now, what do you want residents to be able to point to and say, "That's what this mayor accomplished"?
I want people to be proud of their city. I mean, I've lived here my whole life. I know I've always loved Welland. I'm passionate about where I live. I like to keep my friends and family here. I've lost a lot of friends and family who left this area. So my goal for the next four years is to be a city that someone is proud of, with community pride, community engagement, and working together to get to that goal, making areas of our city better, including the downtown. My vision has always been building a better Welland together. It takes all of us, and we have to work together as a team, as a group, and that's what I hope I bring to the mayorship in the next four years. And at the end of it, I want to be proud to say that the city is as good as or better than it is today.
Graziani is one of eight candidates running for Mayor in Welland, alongside April Jeffs, Graham Speck, Brandon Simon, David Clow, Natashia Bergen, Pat Chiocchio and David McLeod.