Bill Gordon easily wins four-way mayoralty race to lead Midland

Midland has a new mayor and deputy mayor for the next four years of the council term.

Unofficial results for the 2022 municipal election are in, with Bill Gordon becoming the newly elected Mayor of Midland with 2,467 of a total 5,089 votes cast.

For Deputy Mayor, Jack Contin was elected with 2,817 of 5,076 votes cast.

A majority of candidates for the mayoral, deputy mayoral, and council races were gathered at Cellarman’s Pub and Brewery – as well as many supporters – all of whom were heard cheering as the results were revealed.

“I didn’t get around to as many doors as I wanted,” admitted Gordon of the 8,061 households and 14,292 eligible voters with Midland each candidate could have reached.

Gordon said he ran a clean campaign despite being “the subject of a lot of negativity.” 

“I think social media was a big influencer in this, and then the general dissatisfaction with status quo,” said Gordon, “and quite frankly the wedge issue of this campaign played a big part in this. We have all our core staple issues: taxation, affordability of housing, homelessness, service delivery; all of our core missions we’re faced with in every municipality.

“But Midland really wrapped around the Midland Bay Landing and the future of that site and whether or not there’s an appetite to revisit it or charge ahead,” said Gordon, pointing out that the results tilted to the appetite.

“Ultimately, that’s going to be up to council as a whole,” he added.

Fellow mayoral candidates Jonathan Main (1,324 votes), incumbent Stewart Strathearn (1,148 votes), and Ute Schmid-Jones (104 votes) expressed disappointment in their results but thanked residents for their participation.

Said Strathearn, “I think Midland has a tremendous opportunity in the form of Midland Bay Landing, and I hope that this council recognizes the project is worth following through on.” He planned on taking time off to explore further involvement with his family.

Main was proud of his canvasing efforts and contacting many resident, and looked forward to future opportunities in engineering and volunteer involvement with the town.

Schmid Jones admitted her presence would probably not have won, but she expressed large concern regarding the 22 spoiled and 24 declined ballots in the mayoral race. Additionally, she wished to congratulate all of Midland’s blessed talent in the election.

Within the noise of Cellarman’s, Jack Contin was very excited with the results, thanking his volunteers and supporters in the win.

“The final outcome was a dream come true in terms of reaching out to the community, and the community responding with their voting for me,” said Contin.

His opponent in the race, Cody Oschefski, was subdued following the results of his 2,137 votes, simply noting that “that’s how it goes” and adding that he would stay connected within the community in his future. For the deputy mayor race, there were also 26 spoiled ballots cast and 96 declined.

Unofficial election results are available on the election page of the Town of Midland website.

Of note, election results entered on election night are unofficial. Election results are declared official by the town clerk as soon as possible following voting day.