COUNTY OF WELLINGTON – County warden Kelly Linton said the next warden’s term will be defined by continuing to manage COVID effectively for residents and businesses by striking the right balance in the budget.
As the year enters into the final few months, the County of Wellington council will be deciding on who serves as warden for the 2021-2022 term.
As it stands, county wardens serve two-year terms and are selected by a secret ballot among the 16 councillors on council.
County clerk Donna Bryce said by email that the tradition at the county is for members to announce their intention to run for warden at the end of November’s council meeting.
There are no restrictions on the number of terms one can serve as warden or a committee chair.
In a phone interview, Linton couldn’t answer if he’s going to put himself forward again but COVID will still be at the forefront for whoever serves next.
“We’re still going to have to support WDG Public Health to support the health and wellbeing of our citizens,” Linton said. “We still have to balance that off with keeping our businesses open and continuing to provide essential county services.”
An important element to this is the budget as there are families and businesses struggling during the pandemic.
“We need to make sure our 2021 budget effectively balances out continuing to provide essential services to businesses and residents who absolutely need it with people’s ability to pay,” Linton said.
“The warden is going to have to play a strong role in striking that balance and making sure that you allow a process for all councillors to have their say.”
County of Wellington wardens act as the chair for their council meetings and sit on all committees.
Chris White, former warden from 2011 to 2014 and current Guelph/Eramosa mayor, said selecting the warden is an interesting process as you’re running against your colleagues on council as opposed to someone who is elected at large.
“You go through a vetting process by your peers,” White said. “If you get to the point where you’re running for warden, people have respect for you because you’ve proven your ability to do the job.”
White explained that a warden typically has an overall goal and motivation for running for this position.
In his case, the county didn’t have an economic development department at the time.
He explained that you do have some influence as warden as you get a high-level view of everything coming across the committees.
“The other side of the coin is, you still only have one vote,” White said. “If you want to get something, you have to get nine votes and go through the process.”
Linton said he was motivated to play a leadership role to bring forward the county’s first strategic action plan to make priorities and how they spent taxpayer money clear for citizens.
“That was a driver for me because I know the county does a lot of good things but I felt we needed to be more clear in what our priorities were and let citizens know what those priorities were,” Linton said.
He said they have made good progress on this but the pandemic steered the county to a different direction.
“We had some good momentum and then COVID kind of threw a wrench into everything,” Linton said. “Over the last few months we really had to adapt to a pandemic that nobody has ever seen before.”
County council then had to adapt and be flexible to handle the new challenges and Linton said he feels they’ve done well.
He pointed out they were the first county in Ontario to issue a mandatory mask order in support of WDG Public Health’s section 22 order.
He also expressed pride in the $1 million emergency funds that provided low-interest loans to the county’s small businesses.
“We had that program up and running from concept to money flowing in a matter of just over a week,” Linton said. “We had a lot of momentum, we had to adapt to COVID but I think we’re on the right track.”
This will impact next year’s budget which Linton anticipates will be challenging for all members of council. He said democracy isn’t always nice and neat but that is the way it should be.
“You need to have real discussions, you need to have disagreements, you need councillors who have different perspectives and I’m completely fine with that,” Linton said. “I think it’s essential to good leadership.”
The Warden’s Inaugural Meeting, where a warden and committee chairs are selected, will be on Dec. 11.
