KING VOTES: 2 incumbents win re-election, 2 new councillors voted into office

Mayor Steve Pellegrini and Councillors David Boyd and Avia Eek were acclaimed

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 25, 2022
Laura Broadley

The unofficial results of the 2022 King Township municipal election are in and out of the four seats up for grabs, two went to incumbent councillors and two went to women who will be new to the council chambers.

Lifelong King resident Jordan Cescolini won the Ward 1 position with 738 votes, which will see him serve his second term on council.

“I believe we ran a campaign about positivity and moving forward as a community," he said. "It really resonated with the young voters, the new families and a lot of people that embody the King spirit, which is community first."

Cescolini’s team was “delighted” with the result as he came in 220 votes ahead of runner-up Rob Payne, a former King councillor who served from 1988 to 1994.

“It goes to show that people want optimism, not pessimism, in politics," Cescolini said. "I think they want candidates that draw a clear line forward,”
Voter turnout in Ward 1 was at 31.4 per cent, representing 1,327 votes cast out of 4,227 eligible voters.

“We were happy to have hit 31 per cent, slightly more than last election by about 100 voters," Cescolini said. "We are obviously shy of even hitting a majority of voters, which is a bit disappointing, but we understand that it’s up to the candidates to engage voters and without a mayoral race it’s very difficult.”

Political newbie Jennifer Anstey won the Ward 3 position with 273 votes, ousting incumbent Jakob Schneider who came in third with 148 votes. Adam Pham was runner-up with 219 votes.

“I’ve never run for election before so while I was extremely proud of the campaign that I ran, I felt I did all I could do, I didn’t know what to expect or how it would end up,” Anstey said.

Anstey said she was “absolutely delighted with the response and the support” from voters.
Anstey has worked with groups in the community and subsequently spent time lobbying council to make certain decisions.

“I thought, well this is silly. Instead of lobbying and spending so much time doing that, why don’t I just be (on) council?” she said.
Only 651 people cast their votes out of 1,923 eligible voters in Ward 3, which is a turnout of 33.9 per cent.

“As somebody who always votes, I remain disappointed that more people don’t come out and vote," Anstey said. "I’m thrilled with the result but I wish more people would be involved.”

Steve Pellegrini was acclaimed as mayor. This will be his fourth term in the position and marks the third time he’s been acclaimed. David Boyd and Avia Eek were acclaimed to Ward 2 and Ward 6, respectively.

Mary Asselstine won the race in Ward 4 with 553 votes, just 51 votes ahead of runner-up Simon Lloyd. Only 1,239 people cast their vote in Ward 4 out of 3,913 eligible voters, representing a turnout of 31.7 per cent.

The Ward 5 position went to incumbent Debbie Schaefer who received 575 votes, which was 261 more votes than runner-up Michael Di Mascolo. In Ward 5, 889 votes were cast out of 3,850 eligible voters, representing a 23.1-per-cent turnout.