Mayoral candidate Mat Siscoe says St. Catharines has a good foundation but there’s still work to do

Mat Siscoe has plans to spend his foreseeable future listening.

The first candidate to enter the election race for St. Catharines Mayor, Siscoe says he registered early because he wants to spend as much time talking with as many residents as he can.

“The truth is, I think for a lot of folks in the community, they don’t really want to listen to politicians just talk and talk. They want to give their ideas and give their impressions of what they see as being the issues and what they think possible solutions are,” he said.

“I want to spend the next five months just listening and really hearing what those ideas are.”

Siscoe, a regional councillor and former city councillor, filed his nomination papers for mayor this week.

Candidates have until Aug. 19 to register for the Oct. 24 election.

Two-term incumbent Mayor Walter Sendzik said last week he will not be running again.

“I think we’ve built a really good foundation over the last 12 years that I’ve been an elected official in St. Catharines with Brian McMullen and Walter Sendzik and, going back to Tim Rigby before them because I think he sort of started the momentum,” Siscoe said.

“There’s been some good foundational pieces, but I think that there’s still work that needs to be done. And I think COVID put the brakes on some things that we wanted to try to accomplish and I want to see those move forward.”

Siscoe said there are opportunities for the city to take advantage of and challenges it has to overcome.

He said the city has properties and facilities that are underdeveloped and underutilized which he wants to see opened up to new uses and more members of the community.

He said city hall needs to be doing more to address housing affordability and must have plans and programs in place to take advantage of any future funding opportunities that upper levels of government many offer.

More can also be done to enhance accountability at city hall, Siscoe said, so residents feel informed about decisions coming up and why those decisions are made.

And he said city hall also has to continue trying new things, as it did during the pandemic, rather than having a culture of saying no.

The downtown street closures to create pedestrian walkways, for example, was something he said he’d asked about in the past but there was no appetite to do it. But during the pandemic, he raised it again as a way to help businesses and there was a different mindset.

“We need to ingrain that culture of ‘yes’ at city hall and we need to do it in all kinds of different areas. We need to do it when we’re talking about business development and we’re trying to find ways to open up new opportunities for residents.”

Siscoe, a high school physics teacher, was elected to city council for St. Patrick’s ward in 2010. He was the city’s budget chair from 2014 until January. Since January, he’s been serving as a regional councillor representing St. Catharines after being chosen by city council to fill a vacant seat left by the death of Sandie Bellows.

He is the board chair of the Niagara Children’s Centre and coaches Niagara Youth Flag Football and CYO St. Catharines Hockey.

He and wife Chrissy Sadowski have four children between the ages of eight and 13.

Siscoe said he wouldn’t be running if he didn’t have his wife’s full support. In fact, he said she encouraged him not to postpone and go to city hall after he realized he’d accidentally picked her birthday for filing his paperwork.

“Birthdays are a big deal in our house in general so I figured that was the best indication that she was 100 per cent.”

Siscoe said he’s going to be trying to meet as many of the city’s residents as possible and will be knocking on doors full-time come July.

“Just tell folks to look out for me,” he said. “And if they have something on their mind, throw it out because we can do something about it.”

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