Betty Disero

Betty Disero is a former city councillor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was elected to the Toronto City Council in 1985, and served until her resignation in 2003. Disero now lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake where she is Town Councillor since 2014.

Disero's parents were Italian immigrants who moved to Toronto from the town of Pescara. She took courses at York University, and graduated in computer studies from Humber College in 1979.

Disero is a member of the Liberal Party, and worked as a campaign manager for Member of Provincial Parliament Tony Ruprecht prior to running for office herself. She was elected in 1982 as a Catholic trustee on the Toronto Board of Education.

In 1985, Disero defeated veteran politician Joseph Piccininni to win election to the Toronto City Council. Her campaign was assisted by members of the provincial and federal Liberal parties, including Tony Ruprecht and Member of Parliament Charles Caccia. She was generally associated with the council's right-wing.

Disero was appointed to several important city commissions following her election. She was appointed to the Board of Directors of St. Michael's Hospital in January 1986 as a city representative, and was appointed to the city's three-member budget review group later in the same year. Disero was subsequently appointed to the Toronto Harbour Commission in 1987. She sort the chairmanship of the city-services commission in late 1987, but was defeated.

In March 1988, Disero brought forward a controversial six-month freeze on new rooming houses for the city. Disero argued that she was not opposed to rooming houses as such, but was trying to combat abuses in the system. She also argued that she was trying to prevent neighbourhoods from being turned into ghettos. Critics argued that the freeze was an unwarranted overreaction, and made it even more difficult for the city's homeless to find affordable housing.Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton described it as "a completely unjustified panic move". Following criticism from the provincial government, council partially overturned the freeze in May 1988. Disero later supported separate efforts to address abuses within the system.

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