If you have a “real” Christmas tree, it will eventually need to be disposed of. The Town of Cobourg (not the County) provides this service starting January 8, 2018. So if you have a Christmas tree to be disposed of, put it out on the curbside the night of January 7 and sometime in that week, a Cobourg Works department truck will come by and run your tree through their chipper. The Town’s announcement says: Citizens are asked to place trees on the curbside the night prior to pick up, to not wrap trees in plastic and to remove all nails, metal, ornaments, tree stands and tinsel from the trees. Please also be advised that weather conditions may delay pick… Read complete articleChristmas Tree Pickup

There are a number of “unfinished” projects in Cobourg.  Some will be mentioned in the Mayor’s speech at the Levee on New Years’ Day (2:00 pm in Victoria Hall) but some won’t.  In addition, 2018 is an election year for Council and that will mean more attention to some of the projects plus uncertainty with potentially new councillors.  My predictions are not simply a guessing game but more an extrapolation of what’s in the pipeline for the Council plus knowing what’s coming in other areas.  But don’t take my predictions as gospel, remember that they are based on the way things are going now – and that could change. And since no-one can truly know the future, I’m sure my… Read complete articlePredictions for 2018

The section of the 401 between Port Hope and Brighton has always seemed to me to be accident prone and that was the section selected for a pilot project to improve the response of Emergency vehicles – especially the Fire Department and Paramedics.  The problem has been that in 2015 and 2016 more than 20 per cent of the calls received by fire departments across Northumberland County regarding Highway 401 emergencies resulted in no emergency situation being found, often because inaccurate information was given to 9-1-1 operators.  But Cobourg Deputy Fire Chief Gene Thompson led a project to install distance markers every 0.5 kilometres in this stretch and since then, no false calls have occurred. Cooperating in the project were… Read complete articleImproved Emergency response on 401

In the budget setting process for 2017, Cobourg learned that several large corporations had appealed their taxes across Ontario and had been granted refunds and that the impact on Cobourg’s budget would be about $600K.  There are other reasons for tax “refunds” so the budget was set at $800K for 2017.  But the total so far to date is $1,050K.  One of the controversial reasons for tax refunds is the vacancy rebate mandated by the Province but this was only $340K for Cobourg in 2017 and of this only $48K was for Downtown properties.  The decision on vacancy rebates has now been passed back to Municipalities and the County is currently reviewing the situation.  During 2017, Treasurer Ian Davey provided… Read complete articleMunicipal Tax Refunds