Two Southwestern Ontario counties will welcome new wardens in 2022.
Content article
Two London-area counties will welcome new wardens in 2022, each serving in the role for the first time.
In Middlesex County, the largely rural region that wraps around London, councilors recently elected Thames Center Mayor Alison Warwick as warden.
“I’m very honored to be chosen by my peers to be warden for this term,” Warwick said in an interview Wednesday.
“I’m looking forward to working with our county staff. I think we do a lot of things right at the county of Middlesex, and we’re working toward really interesting projects in 2022. ”
Content article
The warden heads county council for a one-year term and serves as the region’s public face locally and provincially.
Warwick, who has been in municipal government since 2014, succeeds two-term warden Cathy Burghardt-Jesson, mayor of Lucan-Biddulph.
“(She) has done a wonderful job… and I want to continue doing the good work that she did,” Warwick said, adding increasing ridership, working with the city of London, and bridging the digital divide between urban and rural communities are among her top priorities next year.
In Elgin County, which takes in seven municipalities south of London, Aylmer Mayor Mary French was elected warden over previous warden Tom Marks, Central Elgin’s deputy mayor, and Robert (Bob) Purcell, mayor of Dutton Dunwich.
Calling her election “humbling,” French thanked counselors for their support. In a release, she said she looked forward to doing “great things for our community this year,” such as improving economic development, continuing work for a long-term care project and advancing discussions about rural housing and homelessness.
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada