By Lisa Gervais
The luck of the draw delivered the warden’s chair to Algonquin Highlands deputy-mayor Liz Danielsen Dec. 15 following a four-four tie vote between her and Minden Hills Mayor Brent Devolin.
To break the tie, the mayor of the township with the highest weighted assessment, Dysart’s Andrea Roberts, had to pick the winning name.
“This is not fun,” Roberts said, before drawing Danielsen’s name from an envelope containing both warden candidates’ names on equal sized pieces of paper.
The random selection delivered Danielson a third term as County warden, a post she will hold until Dec. 14, 2021.
Danielsen said, “to be absolutely honest, I wasn’t really prepared to make a speech today.”
However, she said she was pleased and proud to continue to represent the County.
“The County means an awful lot to me and I just want to assure everyone that I will do my level best.”
She said she looked forward to continuing to work with her County colleagues and thanked Devolin for putting his name forward. She said it was great to see the council actually having an election after not having one for a number of years.
She further acknowledged it was rather extraordinary to be warden for three years running. However, she said “it’s extraordinary times for us all.”
She said they had some incredible challenges ahead of them, starting with the pandemic and continuing to deal with that.
“It’s sad to say that despite the fact there are vaccines coming, we’re gong to be dealing with this for months yet to come,” she said, adding it will make their jobs that much more difficult.
She said they have a province that is rapidly going further into debt and they are going to have to take part in being part of the solution to that problem for some time to come.
“So, I think we can look forward to changes and challenges that we’re all going to have to deal with in the best way that we can possibly can.”
She touched on the service delivery review, “and an incredible number of decisions and thinking to do about how we go forward.”
She said that makes it important to work together and to communicate as best they can. She said they had promised to do that in the past, and had made some strides in that direction “but I know we can all go further in working together because we do all have a common [goal].
She said she also looked forward to continuing with the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus.
“I just want to thank all of my friends, and my colleagues, including all of you for your continued support of me, and I will do my absolute and level best.”
