It’s a quite an honour for West Grey Mayor and former Grey County Warden Kevin Eccles.
He has been elected as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens Caucus.
Eccles says this is a group of Wardens from 14 Southwest Ontario Counties who share many similar issues and challenges.
He says initially the group was more of a networking opportunity for the Wardens, but it now has turned into an advocacy group to lobby both the Provincial and Federal Governments on behalf of their member counties.
Eccles says they have a number of top priority items they will be raising with both levels of government over the upcoming year.
He says the first priority deals with Economic Development in Southwest Ontario and how the region can recover from the downturn.
Eccles says the second deals with the Local Health Integration Networks, or LHINs and the wide scope of responsibility of the group and the impact its decisions will have on the health care of each of communities.
The third priority according to Eccles is trying to get sustainable Provincial funding for municipalities and bring about changes to the current funding formula.
He says the members of the Caucus can learn from each others experiences and can work together try to get improvements in Government.