In a last ditch attempt to stop the approval of the conversion of 394 College to 5 apartments, Emily Chorley made a presentation to Council tonight that accused Council of not listening and of not following proper procedure.  Emily represents the residents on College street and you have to give her credit for persistence and not giving up.  Her presentation was organized and systematic with specific concerns about how the zoning and site plan approval has been done.  She said that 92 local residents did not receive notification of the project, that there were external changes even though it was said there would be none and that they were foreseeable and that none of the suggestions or requests for concessions… Read complete articleTown accused of not listening

Two presentations at Cobourg’s Council meeting tonight were positives – first, the Peewee AA Northumberland Nighthawks Hockey Team were congratulated for winning the 2017 OMHA and OHF Championships.  This team was formed by a merging of a Port Hope and a Cobourg team making it a West Northumberland team so both Mayors were there for the presentation of plaques and handshaking.  See photo below-right.  The second presentation was by Communications Officer Ashley Purdy who was ecstatic over the free publicity that Cobourg got from a video that went viral on Facebook.   The video has been viewed 169,000 times so far and media outlets in the U.S., Japan and the U.K. want to show it.  The video shows an encounter between… Read complete articleCobourg Feel-Good Town

At the next Council meeting, John Henderson will make a motion to establish an ad hoc committee to review Council remuneration.  He proposes that the committee consist of 7 citizens plus staff resources including HR.  The 7 citizens would come from the existing advisory committees.  There are more than 7 committees but presumably John means the seven that advise on policy (see list below).  There are two reasons to review pay to Councillors: 1) The Federal tax law was recently changed so that 100% of pay is taxable instead of one third being classed as an allowance and tax exempt; 2) The last review was in 2011 when an increase of 13% was approved for Councillors.  Note that remuneration is… Read complete articleMotion to Review Council Pay

The first Council meeting of 2018 was very short – only 30 minutes.  Carol Anne Bell-Smith was scheduled to make a presentation but she postponed it.  There were few other items on the Agenda and nothing controversial so the meeting was short.  As previously reported, Site plans for 394 College and 100 University were up for approval and with little discussion, they were in fact approved unanimously.  Carol Anne’s presentation on accessibility at parking meters had been previously made to the Accessibility committee who seemed sympathetic.  However, any action will be decided at a later meeting and will be reported then.  There were a number of miscellaneous announcements including that the preparation of the 2018 budget is running a bit late. … Read complete articleFirst Council meeting in 2018