Windsor's mayor is joining forces with his southern Ontario counterparts with hopes of collectively taking their issues to upper levels of government.
About 20 mayors from Windsor-Essex, London, Sarnia and everywhere in between met to set their priorities.
Drew Dilkens says many municipalities share many of the same struggles as Windsor. "Infrastructure deficit, certainly economic development and certainly the cost of energy in terms of being competitive as a community," says Dilkens. "I think that's something we can talk about at the provincial level and the need to really address (it) because that's going to put all municipalities at a disadvantage."
Dilkens says many of the mayors at the meeting don't have the provincial or federal representation of the governing party. "In the Windsor area for sure, we don't have an elected voice that's part of government at the provincial level," says Dilkens. "It's more important for us to come together as a collective and find our issues that we can have in common so we have a larger voice at the provincial level."
Dilkens also says Ontario's arbitration system when dealing with police and fire departments is "out of control" and needs to be revamped. The next mayors meeting has not been set.
