Lucas wants Police Board to consider merger with Port Hope

John Draper

At a special Council meeting on Thursday October 10, Mayor Lucas Cleveland will give a “Notice of Motion” that asks the Cobourg Police Board to “explore the possibility of a merger with the Port Hope Police Services while continuing to explore all opportunities for expansion including but not limited to provision of police services into Hamilton township”.  In the motion, Lucas provides the rationale where he explains that small to medium sized Police forces need to “expand, merge or be taken over by the OPP”. However, he makes it clear that the OPP option is NOT to be considered nor is the idea of a County wide Police Service. His motion and reasoning follow up on a recent County Study… Read complete articleLucas wants Police Board to consider merger with Port Hope

Report from AMO Conference

John Draper

In late August, representatives from Cobourg attended the Association of Ontario Municipalities (AMO) Conference in Ottawa and at the recent Council meeting on September 25, Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty reported on their activity there.  A highlight was a meeting with three ministers to present concerns and requests for funding.  See Resources below to download Nicole’s “speaking notes” but I will summarize – it looks like there are a number of major Capital projects coming up plus Cobourg is expecting (hoping?) that there will be financial help from the Province.  We already heard about the $25M for water and sewer infrastructure as announced by Premier Doug Ford when he visited but there’s more.  In addition, an unnamed source (probably the Federal… Read complete articleReport from AMO Conference

Town Asks for Submissions for Community Grants

John Draper

Community Grants have been provided for some years with a budget around $40K per year. There are really two categories: 1) Organizations supported by the Town and given grants every year and 2) groups that sometimes get grants depending on the whim of councillors. There are a couple in the first category who have moved into the regular budget and no longer categorized as getting a grant. These are the Art Gallery and the Concert Band. The last time grants were discussed, at a Standing Committee meeting in April, staff proposed a policy to split grants per these categories. Then at the following Council meeting, this policy was approved with the proviso that category one organizations would have to sign… Read complete articleTown Asks for Submissions for Community Grants

Changes to Council Meeting Procedures

John Draper

Effective now, procedures for Council meetings have been further modified as a result of a new by-law passed at the recent full Council meeting on September 25.  The main change is the elimination of one standing committee – the one that was a virtual Committee of the Whole since all Councillors attended. The change is that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Standing Committee is amalgamated into the Corporate, Finance, and Legislative Standing Committee.  The Mayor plus two other councillors are members; currently these are Deputy Mayor Beatty and Councillor Barber but that could change. There were a number of other minor changes mostly to do with minutes and items on the Agenda but notable were some things that did NOT change… Read complete articleChanges to Council Meeting Procedures

Stormwater Fees Adjusted

John Draper

In October 2023, the Town of Cobourg confirmed a decision to change how the cost of Stormwater management would be recovered. Instead of embedding in taxes, it would be a fee related to usage. But the formula adopted to decide on the fee was unfair to some property owners and setting a fully comprehensive fee knowing runoff for every property would be onerous and costly. But responding to complaints, the Town put the fee collection on hold – at least for some people – and commissioned a review. At the Council meeting on 26 June 2024, Council decided to implement Option B of the resulting consultant’s report – basically, this mandates a fairly low flat rate for all residences and… Read complete articleStormwater Fees Adjusted

Council argues over Study wanted for Brookside.

John Draper

The last item on the last night’s council meeting was approval of a Sanitary Sewer Flow Monitoring study at Brookside. This is a routine thing to determine how many households could be supported on the property and costs somewhere between $25K and $40K. But there was a long discussion over whether the Town should pay for it or make the potential buyer pay for it which is apparently the usual process. Both Nicole Beatty and Miriam Mutton were not happy that the Town would be paying for it as requested by the potential buyer of Brookside.  During the meeting, we also learned that there has been a conditional sale of Brookside and this is expected to close on November 13… Read complete articleCouncil argues over Study wanted for Brookside.

Premier Ford’s Press Conference

John Draper

Premier Ford scheduled a Press Conference for Monday afternoon (September 23) and some hoped it would mean an announcement on Brookside – but no.  However, local reporters did ask questions when it was their turn!  The topic of the Press Release was that “the Ontario government is investing up to $25 million in water infrastructure to help enable the construction of 2,266 new homes in the Town of Cobourg”.  That is, they will help fund water mains and waste water infrastructure for the town – this is needed particularly for the East end where Tribute has a major development at the north end of Brook Rd. This is a major grant to Cobourg and both Mayor Cleveland and MPP David… Read complete articlePremier Ford’s Press Conference

Rotary Tree Planting Project

John Draper

With all the talk about climate change and how humans are causing some or all of it, one fact is often overlooked: Canada’s trees are a major factor in mitigating the problem because they take in Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen.  Unfortunately, this benefit is lost when there are forest fires as often happens, notably last year in B.C. and elsewhere.  But this damage can be reversed (at least to some extent) by planting new trees and Northumberland’s Rotary clubs have now got together to plant 500 trees.  The clubs are working with Trees for Life which has matched the Rotary District’s contribution of $5000.  In addition, teams of volunteers from each club will be actively engaged in the tree… Read complete articleRotary Tree Planting Project

More on County Policing Report

John Draper

As reported previously, Northumberland County commissioned a report on policing options in the County and the resulting report by StrategyCorp was presented to County Council at their meeting on 18 September. Cobourg Police Chief Paul VandeGraaf spoke in a “delegation” and called it unfair, biased and had a pre-determined outcome. But the County Councillors decided not to follow up with detailed costing – primarily because Policing is not a county responsibility. The only way this can be changed is if the Province passes enabling legislation. In his presentation, Paul got emotional when referring to the human factors – a possible layoff of civilians doing the Criminal record checks. He was also concerned about the stress caused to Officers who might… Read complete articleMore on County Policing Report