“It’s a good opportunity to represent Prescott-Russell,” said Sarrazin during a November 30 phone interview.

The mayor of Alfred-Plantagenet Township was confirmed as the 2021 warden-elect for the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) following the in-camera portion of the November 25 UCPR council session. Sarrazin approaches the end of the second year of his term as the newly-elected mayor for the township and feels that he is ready to take on the extra duties that go with being the UCPR warden.

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Stéphane Sarrazin sera le président des CUPR

He expects to face many of the same challenges resulting from the pandemic as Warden Pierre Leroux did during 2020. But he also noted that both he and the other mayors on UCPR council and the UCPR staff are now well-prepared in the use of online technology to deal with the needs of Prescott-Russell through virtual meetings with each other and also with senior government agencies.

“We are doing as best we can with what we’ve got,” Sarrazin said. “We have had to face the fact that we have to readjust our thinking on how municipalities work.”

He noted one possible benefit for the Prescott-Russell region from the pandemic is a boom in the rural residential housing market. With more people having to work at home, he suggested that more people with living in large urban centres like Ottawa might be tempted to embrace a quieter rural lifestyle to go with their work-at-home lifestyle.

Two issues Sarrazin hopes to see progress on during his term as warden are the future four-lane expansion of the highway link between Rockland and Orléans, and also a provincial government decision on the future of the Alfred College building and grounds.