Mayor Dennis Williams is representing Wilmington at the 83rd annual U.S. Conference of Mayors, which wraps up Monday in San Francisco.
Williams co-chairs the conference's transportation committee. There, he says he's been touting Wilmington's Amtrak service, and the city's low cost of living compared to larger neighbors like New York.
The conference is a chance for collaboration, he says, as well as exposure.
"Mayors pretty much stick together, because we're all trying to save our cities," Williams says. "We share information with each other, and we're very open to that, and that's what we do."
Williams is the only Delaware mayor at this year's conference, where he says public safety and community policing have been in the spotlight. He feels Wilmington is "ahead of the curve" in that area, from work on implementing body cameras to retraining officers in public relations.
More broadly, though, he says the conference is his one weekend a year to catch up with mayoral colleagues and talk up Wilmington's brand.
"I definitely have fun competing against the other cities -- and they don't get mad, because they'll compete against us," Williams says. "We are the corporate capital of the world and the credit card capital of the world, and I have guys teasing me all the time, 'We're gonna come down and take some of those banks from you.' I'd say, 'Well, come on.'"
This year's conference drew more than 250 mayors from 41 states and Puerto Rico. They heard speeches from panelists including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and M.C. Hammer.
