This coming Sunday will mark one year until the next municipal election, and Mayor Josh Morgan says he intends to seek a second term. He casually confirmed his intent during an interview with CTV News on Thursday, “Yeah, yeah, I’m going to seek re-election. I’ve said for a long time with my perspective of having been on council, the issues that we’re talking about today, the ones that we’re trying to tackle and making progress on, you can’t make significant progress in a four-year period.” Morgan’s campaign would be the first attempt at a second term since Anne Marie DeCicco-Best’s unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2010. Ed Holder, Matt Brown, and Joe Fontana each served a single term in the mayor’s office, and Joni Baechler was appointed by Council and chose not to seek election in 2014. Morgan says one of the challenges that will require more time is homelessness. “Homelessness has risen 25 per cent in the province over the past two years, we kind of were caught in that rising wave in a way,” he explains. “And that can be really frustrating because it makes it really hard to see the progress that has been made. It’s really hard to see the people who aren’t on the street anymore when you still see people on our streets.” During a 2022 campaign event, Morgan declined to set a firm target for property tax increases, but added, “I would be unsatisfied over five per cent, but I honestly believe we could do much better than that.” On Thursday, he was prepared to defend recent tax rate hikes of 8.7 per cent in 2024 and 7.3 this year. “Listen, budgets are investments,” he stated. “And we had to make some investments in public safety, transit, housing (and) homelessness to actually get us to the point where we can bring those numbers down.” Next week Morgan’s 2026 draft budget will be released. He suggests that London has already dealt with recent financial pressures while some other municipalities simply delayed the inevitable. Morgan expresses confidence that he will meet the “under five per cent” pledge he made during his most recent State of the City Address, even as some other mayors are wrestling with big tax hikes in 2026, “I know there are a lot of my (mayoral) colleagues struggling with how to make the next budget work. We’re going to have a much easier go in the next budget,” he predicts. Morgan appears comfortable defending his record as mayor, pointing to the 47-thousand housing unit approved by council so far this term, fulfilling a campaign promise to invest $4 million into neighbourhood parks and recreation services, and the city’s finances. “During the last three years of me being mayor, we have never paid down more city debt,” Morgan says. “This is going to be rewarding taxpayers in the future because of the principle and interest payments on that (debt).” The official campaign period starts May 1, 2026 when candidates can file their nomination papers and begin fundraising. “I want to be very clear, to me this is not an election period. (Council must) still do the work each and every day. I encourage every member of council to focus on the work that we need to do together. They’ll have lots of time to campaign after they file next year,” Morgan says. Londoners will cast their votes on Oct. 26, 2026.
