A report advocating sweeping political change for Niagara is being panned by critics for inaccuracies and questionable data.

The report, being promoted by Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati and written by a former Progressive Conservative Niagara Falls election campaign staffer, says Niagara should be reorganized into four cities. However, the document written by Nicholas Tibollo, makes claims about the popularity of the proposal and the finances of the City of St. Catharines that are not supported by data.

The report claims, for instance, a clear majority of Niagara residents support the idea of eliminating the regional government and amalgamating the 12 lower-tier municipalities into four cities.

The report does not cite any surveys, which are typically accompanied by such things as how they were undertaken and their sample sizes.

"They clearly want to be taken as serious researchers, but for that to happen they have to do certain things," said Brock University professor David Siegel, an expert on municipal government. "That includes presenting your data, like your survey questions and margins of error."

Other critics, including St. Catharines city Coun. Mat Siscoe, responding to the report's "case study" claiming poor financial planning by the city, said the report "demonstrates an absolute failure to understand the finances of municipalities and basic economics."

Tibollo declined an interview request from The Standard, saying in an email he and his wife just had a child.

The Four Cities Niagara group emerged online a few weeks ago with a website and Twitter account. The group was anonymous but claimed to be a committee of "business owners, industry experts, politicians and concerned citizens."

On Tuesday morning Diodati, Tibollo, Chris Mason from Canadian Niagara Hotels and Joel Noden appeared on the CKTB 610 AM morning show and identified themselves as the four-city group.

Diodati said on CTKB and a subsequent interview with The Standard there is no committee, but is a "grassroots movement." The four-city group's website, which does not identify its members, has removed any reference to it being a committee.

The Niagara Falls mayor, who has publicly supported a four-city model for Niagara since May, said the idea goes back to a consultant's report in 2000 that advocated a three- or four-city model.

"Some of that had to be updated because times have changed, but I believe it is the best solution for Niagara," said Diodati, who believes Niagara has too many politicians.

The report recommends creating four cities — St. Catharines, Niagara Falls (including Fort Erie and Niagara-on-the-Lake), Welland and West Niagara. If its plan is used, it would make Niagara Falls the largest municipality in Niagara with the most elected councillors.

The report also presents a "case study" about the City of St. Catharines which says its reserve funds are significantly smaller than its liabilities and says the city has "neglected to address its financial status and priorities."

The unsigned report does not say how a four-city model would address financial issues. Siscoe and St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said the document is inaccurate.

"They don't know what they are talking about," said Sendzik.

Siscoe said comparing reserve funds to liabilities is meaningless, in part because it excludes actual revenues and does not say anything about the financial realities of a city.

He said there are serious issues cities face, including growing infrastructure debts, but the report does not address those.

Sendzik said it also does not show the city's expenditures on repairing ice pads, the aquatic centre or funding Meridan Centre and the performing arts centre.

"It's unfortunate because errors like that impact the case the report is trying to make for what could be a good idea," Sendzik said. "If you want to be taken seriously, you have to do things like putting your name to a report, getting the data right and so on."

Asked about the missing survey data and the case study in the report, Diodati said he didn't know anything about that because he may not have read the report.

"I know there were surveys, but whether they were scientific or not, I don't know," he said.

While on CKTB, Diodati told people to read the report to educate themselves but later told The Standard he had only read an "iteration" of the report at "some point" and did not know what the online report says.

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He told The Standard to speak to Tibollo about the report.

In his email, Tibollo said he recieved a small amount of private funding to create the report, but did not identify the funders. He did not answer questions about his report's methodology or the four-cities group.

The four-city model is the latest governance reform idea to be floated in anticipation of Queen's Park ordering restructuring of Niagara and several other regional municipalities.

A larger group that includes former Brock University president Jack Lightstone and Mike Watt from Walker Industries has been advocating a single municipality for Niagara and made a public presentation to St. Catharines city council in early May.

The province appointed former deputy minister Michael Fenn and former Waterloo Region chair Ken Seiling as special advisers to investigate restructuring regional governments. People wanting to present information could do so until May.

Diodati said the four-city group filed its report with the advisers.

Sendzik said he believes a single Niagara municipality is inevitable over the next 30 years. Whatever the next phase of Niagara goverance looks like, he said it should include a blueprint from how to get from here to a functioning single municipality in the future.

Fenn and Seiling's report is expected to completed soon and given to Premier Doug Ford. It is not clear when the report will be made public.

Siegel said while the expectation has been that Ford's government will impose changes on regional government, it is possible that very little happens.

"Ford has a lot of problems at the moment, and no matter what you do with governance reform, you're going to make a lot of people unhappy," he said. "So the thinking is, why would he do something that is just going to make more problems for him?"

Given that the period to offer comment to Fenn and Seiling has passed, Sendzik and Siegel said groups advocating a governance model are likely focused on trying to lobby the government directly, rather than trying to influence the advisers' report.

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