Hamilton Mayor Charles Gosling said there needs to be a "two-way alliance" for Government and the Corporation to work together after Government announced it will axe municipalities.

Speaking at a town-hall meeting last night, Mr. Gosling was asked by an audience member what the point was of having newly introduced quarterly meetings if the Corporation was to shut. In June it was announced that Government planned to take over both the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George's.

Mr. Gosling said: "The point of all of this is hopefully that this is a two way alliance that we need to create in order to present a case to Government that they will listen to. "One of the main concerns has been this perception of it being business activities take place behind closed doors. Most of the time what we're doing is more than a glorified condo association."

He continued: "When you use a toilet, the handle works, that the streets are swept, that the lights work. Yes we are a $24 million business but we are complicated. I think overall the committee does a pretty good job and I think it will be hard for any other organisation in Bermuda to take up and do the business we're doing.

"I had a very cordial meeting with the Premier. We're at the beginning steps and it's going to be through cordiality and the two of us that are going to allow these discussions to proceed and that is initially where I would like to leave it now."

The public meeting comes after The Royal Gazette's A Right To Know campaign called for the municipality to open its doors to the taxpaying public.

Mr. Gosling pledged to do so before he was elected.

During the meeting, Mr. Gosling spoke about the decision to hold public meetings.

"We're also looking at opening up some of our corporation meetings to the public. Transparency is also being worked on. We have already opened up the parameters of public meetings. We're in the process of editing our code of conduct. In the terms of committees, we've reduced these down from 11 to five. It was also not good use of time donated by the members."

Mr. Gosling also spoke about safety in the city and plans to increase it.

"Safety at Bulls Head Car Park was not an election item but has been an important issue. We plan to update the CCTV system. In the meantime rather than waiting for that process to come to pass the committee has met with a surveillance company."

He also said the corporation would be testing out a new shuttle service to take people to their cars from City Hall to Bulls Head starting next month. The service will be from 4.30 to 7.30 p.m. Mr. Gosling said anyone working late in the night should take advantage of this service to move their car and park in any of the free parking on the streets after 6 p.m.

Ending his speech, the mayor said: "One way or the other, change will come."

Also speaking at the meeting were Deputy Mayor Glenn Smith who spoke about changes the infrastructure committee was doing including paving streets, putting up new news to warn people about the CCTV cameras and more.

Property committee chair John Harvey spoke about the importance of the parks in the city while Alderman Pam Ferreira spoke about new developments.

Dennis Tucker spoke about the Corporations' finances.