Kingsville Mayor Dennis Rogers is seeking a second term in office.
Rogers says his connection to the community is what motivated him to run again, noting he owns a business in Kingsville, raised his family there and wants to continue helping shape the town’s future.
He says his first four years as mayor focused on laying the foundation for Kingsville’s future through long-term planning and increased infrastructure investment, with funding for infrastructure needs rising from about 46 per cent when he took office to nearly 60 per cent today.
“Council fully endorsed a long term strategic plan and for that as you know, it’s not just for four years. We’re looking down the road. We call it the Kingsville 2040 and looking at different elements around our community, what we can do to ensure that, one, we’re sustainable and two, that we’re reliant,” Rogers said.
“Really having that reliant infrastructure. Infrastructure has kind of been a focus since day one.”
Rogers says infrastructure remains one of the municipality’s biggest long-term challenges, but says council is taking a gradual approach.
“We only have so many dollars to go around. Our annual tax base is around $25 million right? So you take infrastructure out of there, there’s not a whole lot leftover. So we need to be mindful and we need to make sure every tax dollar that we collect, we’re going to maximum value for it,” he said.
Rogers also highlighted projects completed during his first term, including the Cottam community centre, a multi-use path on 2nd Concession, a new home for the food bank and community hub, a nurse practitioner clinic and expanded programming for seniors.
Looking ahead, Rogers says a second term would focus on deciding how key public spaces evolve in the years ahead.
“What do we want our downtown to look like? What do we want our waterfront to look like? What do we want our parks and recreation facilities to look like? We have numerous trails around our community, how do we want those to look? So those are the conversations I want to have with our residents,” Rogers said.
“Get them involved in terms of how they want it to look and what are those plans look like? What are those costs look like?”
At the time of publication, three other candidates had filed to run for mayor of Kingsville.
They include: Mary Ellen Havlik, Roshan Nallaratnam, and Thomas Neufeld.
Interested candidates have until Friday August 21 at 2 p.m. to file their papers.
The 2026 municipal election will take place Monday October 26.