Anne Marie DeCicco-Best

Infobox_President


name = Anne Marie DeCicco-Best
small| caption =
order = 60th Mayor of London, Ontario
term_start = December 4, 2000
term_end =
predecessor = Dianne Haskett
successor =
birth_date = April 1964
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
spouse = Tim Best
religion =|

Anne Marie DeCicco-Best (born April 1964) is the current (60th) mayor of London, Ontario, Canada.

DeCicco graduated from Fanshawe College's broadcast journalism program in 1986 and worked for CHYR in Leamington, Ontario, before returning in 1987 to work at CJBK and CJBX, a country music station in London as a reporter covering city hall. She also later taught at Fanshawe.

DeCicco was first elected to London City Council in 1991 as a councillor in Ward Five, becoming the youngest person ever to serve there, after former Ward Five councillor Grant Hopcroft made the jump to the Board of Control.

In 1996 she was an avid supporter of London's bid for the 2001 Canada Summer Games, which were subsequently awarded to London. In 1997, after two, three-year terms as a ward councillor, she topped the polls when she was elected to the London Board of Control and acted as deputy mayor and budget chief to Dianne Haskett, whom she succeeded as mayor in the 2000 election. She was re-elected to a second term in 2003.

She also serves on the board of governors of the University of Western Ontario (UWO) and the London Police Services Board.

On November 2, 2005, DeCicco announced her engagement to Tim Best, a 44-year-old entrepreneur that she first met at the John Labatt Centre in downtown London during the 2005 Memorial Cup hockey championship. Best is a London native and was the principal owner of two Junior B hockey teams in Texas. He now works in UWO's athletic department in Thames Hall on Western's main campus.

DeCicco and Best's wedding was held on June 17, 2006 at St. Mary's Church in London with the reception for 400 held at the Marconi Club. The couple honeymooned in the Bahamas.

On November 13, 2006, DeCicco-Best was re-elected for a third consecutive term as the mayor of London. Her main opponent was former London North-Centre Liberal Member of Parliament Joe Fontana. Her victory in this election, with its four-year term mandated by the province of Ontario, will make DeCicco-Best the longest-serving (consecutive year) mayor in London's history, at 10 years in a row.

External links

* [http://www.london.ca City of London Web site]
* [http://www.london.ca/Council/honours_list.htm 2006 Mayor's Honour's List recipients]

ee also

*List of mayors of London, Ontario