The partnerships a town or city forms with surrounding communities, community groups and other levels of government are integral to dealing with issues that may arise.

That’s according to Danny Breen, mayor of the city of St. John’s.

Breen says you can’t work in isolation any more and you need to work together to deal with any problems.

As an example, Breen points to earlier this year when the federal government put a stop to the city dumping snow in the harbour. Not dumping snow there means the city has to triple the fleet doing the work at a cost of an extra $600,000 a year. He also notes there are climate impacts associated with that. According to Breen, partnerships are crucial when situations like that arise for a city to move forward.)