Archive

Lots of new faces on smaller County Council

October 29, 2014   ·   0 Comments

As a result of Monday’s municipal elections, there will be plenty of new faces on Dufferin County Council, but for the first time in County history, only one will be from Melancthon Township.

As well, none of the newcomers will be women who won at the ballot box by seeking their four-year terms as mayor or deputy mayor of their local municipality, all having won by acclamation.

The outgoing 14-member council included eight mayors and five deputy mayors. The new council will have just 13, depopulation having dropped Melancthon’s number of electors below the 2,500 required for it to have two seats at the County table.

Once Dufferin’s most populous municipality, the township joins East Garafraxa and Grand Valley in having a single representative, the latter town’s growing population having fallen just short of the 2,500 mark required by the Dufferin County Act.

Of the eight mayors on the outgoing Council, only three will be there for the new council term, and of them only Amaranth Mayor Don MacIver was a victor at the polls, having edged out Deputy Mayor Walter Kolodziechuk. The other two – Mono Mayor Laura Ryan and Mulmur Mayor Paul Mills – were returned by acclamation.

Three others – Shelburne Mayor Ed Crewson,  East Garafraxa Mayor Allen Taylor and Melancthon Mayor Bill Hill, the current Warden, did not seek re-election. And two – Orangeville Mayor Rob Adams and Grand Valley Mayor John Oosterhof – were defeated at the polls, Mayor Adams losing out a close race to Councillor Jeremy Adams and Mayor Oosterhof, a former warden, being solidly beaten by Deputy Mayor Steve Soloman.

Apart from Messrs. Williams and Soloman, new mayors at the County table will be Shelburne’s Ken Bennington, Melancthon’s Darren White and East Garafraxa’s Guy Gardhouse, all of whom had been deputy mayors of their municipalities.

Of the six deputy mayors in the outgoing council, only two won re-election to that office, Orangeville’s Warren Maycock and Mono’s Ken McGhee. Now, with just five deputies on Council, the remaining three all reached the County table by acclamation – Amaranth’s Jane Aultman, Shelburne’s Geoff Dunlop and Mulmur’s Heather Hayes.

One of the new County Council’s first tasks will be to elect one of its members to succeed Warden Hill.

Readers Comments (0)