The mayor of Saint John issued a passionate and pressing plea to neighbouring municipalities last week to band together as one greater Saint John region.

Now, one community says it’s on board with regionalization.

In his state of the city address, Saint John Mayor Don Darling put it in plain terms...

“We need regionalization,” Darling said last week, in a message to suburban areas surrounding the cash-strapped city -- including the towns of Grand Bay-Westfield, Rothesay and Quispamsis.

It's a message Quispmamsis Mayor Gary Clark, who is also the chair of the Fundy Regional Service Commission, heard loud and clear.

“There are many other things that we should be cooperating and working on,” Clark said.

But he draws a hard line when it comes to the municipalities becoming more than just neighbours.

“We're not interested in amalgamating with the city of Saint John, but certainly want to help and recognize the issues that are in Saint John.”

Many of the outside residents commute into the city to work while paying lower property taxes.

“I’d love to see a poll tax,” said MLA Gerry Lowe, who is a former Saint John city councillor. “I’d love to see anybody working in Saint John pay extra to work in Saint John. That includes the firemen, the policemen, city staff, that includes everybody, right. We're the engine of this whole area.”

This conversation is nothing new in the greater Saint John region, but with the city's current financial crisis, it seems to have taken on a new urgency.

“We're working with a lot of old formulas and we pay the lion's share,” Darling said.

So when it comes to possibly changing up that cost-sharing model?

“We're certainly open and our door is open to discussing these things with the city of Saint John,” Clark said.

Grand Bay-Westfield Mayor Grace Losier couldn't be reached for comment and Rothesay Mayor Nancy Grant declined an interview.

Anne Mooers, a spokesperson for the Department of Local Government, says they have been working towards a regional collaboration committee but there is a lot of work left to do.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Lyall.