Can Concordia grad remake the image of a West Island suburb?

When Alex Bottausci, BA 94, EMBA 13, was running to unseat long-time Dollard-des-Ormeaux mayor Ed Janiszewski in 2017, he told us he had big plans for the Montreal suburb of 50,000 people.

Two years after a surprise victory that saw him win 50 per cent of the vote, we caught up with the former program coordinator at the Institute for Co-operative Education to talk about his accomplishments and challenges at the helm of a municipality.

As Ed Janiszewski’s successor, have you faced any special challenges?

Alex Bottausci: There were no real surprises for me, as I’d been a councillor for 12 years. The election showed that D.D.O. residents were ready for change and they’ve demonstrated a lot of support and enthusiasm for our new projects. City staff has risen to the occasion and we continue to present new ideas to the community. One challenge, however, is the length of time it can take to get a project off the ground.

How do you balance routine municipal management with the need to achieve longer-term goals?

AB: That’s a tough one. You have to be well-organized and able to bring vision while keeping in mind the day-to-day reality. One perfect little example: I recall saying, ‘I want more customer-centric thinking, I want us to be more responsive to our citizens. People should be able to pay their taxes and sign up their kids for activities online, et cetera.’ Then I had the head of IT sit me down and say, ‘You know, to make all those things happen, we need some type of IFS [integrated financial system].’ But given that our system goes back to the 1980s, that’s not possible right now. So that’s kind of a reality check. We keep the vision in mind in all that we do, make changes when possible right away and plan for the future for others. You need the right people in place and I’m happy to say that we have them.

In your time as councillor and now as mayor, what have you learned about how to build consensus with neighbouring municipalities?

Working with neighbouring municipalities has been a delight and a pleasure. We have the ASM  [Association des municipalités de banlieue], which is the group of demerged cities that come together every month. We also have a West Island group of mayors who look at common issues, whether it’s roads, traffic lights, bike paths or, more recently, an environmental issue like the banning of single-use plastics. So there’s tremendous collaboration and I would like to explore this much more so we can learn best practices from each other.

One challenge we face is trying to sensitize Montreal to the different realities of the West Island around issues like infrastructure and transportation.

Close to one-fifth of D.D.O. residents are seniors. How does this factor into your policies?

There’s a plethora of services that need to be looked at. In the next five to 10 years we’ll be retooling and re-engineering our parks. We’re talking about putting in specialized exercise equipment for seniors. We’re also looking at possible bus services, in collaboration with the Société de transport de Montréal, to bring people to different points, whether it’s Galerie des Sources, Marché de l’Ouest or Fairview Shopping Centre.

This might be a good time to segue to the upgraded library. Can you talk about that project?

We were fortunate to get roughly $2.6 million between federal and provincial grants, which we have to match. The library will be expanded and fully renovated to meet the needs and wants of the community for the next 20 years and beyond. New systems will be in to facilitate the picking up and dropping off of books. The children’s section will be expanded. A larger area will be provided for our student population.

We were just speaking about seniors. They have demands in terms of areas to sit down and be comfortable — to meet with friends, chat, read a book, get a cup of coffee and relax. All of that is being taken into consideration.

What are some of the other projects you hope to see through as mayor?