Ugulini ‘elated’ to win Thorold mayoralty
One-term councillor defeats veteran D’Angela in two-way municipal election race
Surrounded by his family and supporters, Terry Ugulini says he was ‘elated’ to be elected mayor of Thorold.
With one term of council under his belt, Ugulini said he feels his presence in the community is what resonated with voters.
“I’ve been out in the community for four years and I’ll continue to do that and deal with issues as they arise,” he said.
With 3,298 votes, Ugulini edged out Henry D’Angela in a two-way race for mayor. D’Angela was attempting to make the jump from regional council back to the mayoral seat he once held.
Ugulini said when he first saw the results, he was relieved.
“A campaign’s a grind. It’s just — when you have so many people helping you and you come out and you win, I feel so good for all of the volunteers who helped pushed me over the top,” he said. “I would have been more disappointed for them if we weren’t successful than for myself.”
While he admits there are multiple issues in the city, he said economic development, business retention and expansion is what he heard a lot of chatter about on the campaign trail.
“We need to bring jobs back to the area,” he said. “We have the location and service property. The city is growing with residential growth, we need to carry that component with it.”
He said Thorold is looking ahead, and moving forward was big with people door to door.
“They didn’t want to hear about what happened in the past, they wanted to know where we’re going moving forward,” he said.
With more than two decades of public service under his belt, D’Angela said he was obviously disappointed with Monday’s result but said he’ll continue to serve the community, just in a different capacity.
“I’m disappointed that the citizens didn’t elect me as mayor, they’re moving forward with a new mayor and I wish him all the best,” said D’Angela. “He’s going to have a tough challenge ahead of him, there’s a lot that this community needs to do and improve upon, but it will be in his hands.”
While incumbents Anthony Longo, Fred Neale and David (Jim) Handley were all re-elected Monday, there will be some new faces around the city council table come December. Carmen DeRose, Victoria Wilson, Ken Sentence, John Kenny and Nella Dekker (D’Epiro) were all elected to serve on council.
Tim Whalen, who served as deputy mayor during the past term of council, beat out the outgoing mayor, Ted Luciani, for Thorold’s directly-elected regional council seat.