Council’s regular meeting on December 14 covered a lot of ground and it was followed by two budget submissions meetings.  Earlier posts covered some issues but not all – this post will attempt to partially fill the gap.  Topics covered in the regular meeting included a decision to terminate an agreement with the County on Economic development, an update on Brookside and a planned demolition of downtown buildings to permit a future development.  Then Tuesday’s budget meeting included discussion of micro-transit as covered previously but also several other interesting projects.  These included re-construction of Albert Street, downtown street lights, replacing parking meters with “pay and display” downtown and renovating the West Beach boardwalk.  Both meetings also included other more routine… Read complete articleLast Council Meeting for 2020

On Thursday, 17 December, Deputy Director of Community Services Teresa Behan presented her proposed budget for 2021 and included significant budget cuts to make up for expected reduced revenue in 2021.  Because of Covid-19, assumptions were made about when activity would return to normal.  The budget assumed the Beach would reopen, that the Concert Hall would stay closed, the CCC would have drastic reduction is usage – especially in the first half of the year – the Waterfront Festival would not happen (Canada Day not determined), the Sandcastle Festival would be virtual and promotion of Tourism would be reduced.  Teresa suggested how the loss of revenue could be mitigated with deferred hiring and other reductions in cost.  Her presentation (see… Read complete articleThird Council meeting on Budget Requests

At the Council meeting on Monday and at the Budget meeting on Tuesday, Council were briefed on a proposal by Director of Public Works Laurie Wills to conduct a trial of a possible Micro-Transit system in Cobourg.  It would use full–size buses for the trial since the Town already owns these but if successful, new buses would be smaller and would possibly use hybrid technology.  The idea is that instead of a fixed route, buses would be effectively on-call with routes determined by software and based on demand. The advantages of a micro-transit systems are many: lower cost per rider, pickup locations closer to home, improved accessibility, far less wait times, faster and more direct trips, higher vehicle utilization, and… Read complete articleTown Considering Trial of Micro-Transit

The Monday Committee of the Whole Council meeting was busy and productive. Reported earlier were the VanDyk homes project, the Q3 Budget Variance report and the Second Street parking lot but several other topics were discussed and approved.  As usual, they will have to be ratified at the regular Council meeting on December 14. Additional items included Indigenous Land Acknowledgement, a new Advisory Committee, approval of a development on Nickerson Drive, an increase in Planning fees and looking into different kinds of buses.  The meeting started with a presentation by Jack Gibbons on the climate crisis and a request to Council for support of his idea.  There were also a number of other motions passed – more below.  It was… Read complete articleBusy Council Meeting

There are two reasons to be disappointed with Tuesday’s budget session.  First, most departments asked for a whole lot more money than the Deputy Mayor’s target of an increase of just 0 to 1% and secondly, most of the presentations were about what had been achieved instead of how they were keeping their budget under control.  That is, they talked about why their department is important and presumably deserves a whole lot of money. Numbers were provided to Council that detailed what the money would be spent on but only a few numbers were included in presentations that could be downloaded by the public.  I guess it’s unrealistic to expect draft budgets to be made available online since they are more… Read complete articleBudget Meeting Disappointment