Category: News 2020

More Trees in Cobourg

John Draper

In 2019, Cobourg had a net loss of 75 trees and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee didn’t think the Town was putting enough money into the budget to replace and add to them.  At their meeting on January 7th, they made a motion that the budget be increased from the $50K proposed to $100K.  Further they wanted an extra $50K for replacement of Emerald Ash trees which are continuing to die off.  Their motion will be presented to the Committee of the Whole Council meeting on January 27 but meanwhile, Budget meetings have been held where the subject was raised by Emily Chorley (she attends the Parks and Rec meetings).  She convinced Council to increase the budget from $50K… Read complete articleMore Trees in Cobourg

Canoe Club and Town Reach Agreement

John Draper

In September 2019, a Safety audit of the harbour resulted in a conflict between the Dragon Boat & Canoe Club (CDBCC)and Marina Management.  A number of recommendations were made but the focus was on the club’s activities.  In an effort to resolve the problems relating specifically to the CDBCC, a working group was established made up of Jeremy Fowlie, Kim Burgeron, and Dean Coates representing the CDBCC and Suzanne Seguin, Emily Chorley and Ian Davey representing the Town.  Ian Davey will be presenting a recommendation to Council at the Committee of the Whole meeting on 27 January that includes an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that spells out a number of changes plus the responsibilities of both the Town and the… Read complete articleCanoe Club and Town Reach Agreement

Northumberland Mall Changes

John Draper

NOTE: This post is dated 17 Jan 2020. The Mall is obviously ripe for a makeover but Trinity group who are managing the Mall, are not revealing their plans.  Although Mall ownership changed hands in the last few weeks, Trinity Group are still managing the property.  The Mall looks tired since routine maintenance is not getting done and tenants in the Mall are gradually moving out.  There is growth, but not in the Mall proper – the new “strip plaza” in the parking lot facing Elgin is now at the Site Plan approval stage (more here) and new tenants are moving into the outside spaces. Based on what we know so far, we can deduce that drastic changes will be… Read complete articleNorthumberland Mall Changes

GO Bus Service to Cobourg

John Draper

For at least 15 years, local residents have been lobbying for an extension of the Go Bus/Train service to Port Hope and Cobourg (see links below).  In 2015, Mayors from Clarington, Port Hope, Cobourg and others got together to commission a study and subsequently the Province announced that the train would be extended to Bowmanville.  But the hope of lobbyists is that the Go Bus service which currently terminates in Newcastle would continue on to Port Hope and Cobourg’s Northumberland Mall. To do this, they must first convince Metrolinx that there is a viable business case. This recently stepped into high gear when Northumberland County added a goal to its current Strategic Plan to “Advocate for extension of GO Transit… Read complete articleGO Bus Service to Cobourg

Progress on New Museum for Dressler House

John Draper

Marie Dressler Foundation is planning an expansion of the museum at Dressler House to include sections for the other two Canadian female Oscar winners: Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer and at Monday’s Council Meeting, the team working on this gave a progress report.  Toronto University agreed to offer the project to students in their Master program for Museum Studies and 5 students accepted: Michelle Wright, Enya Barbeau, Karen Cheung, Natalie Heaton and Emma Myers.  They presented a brief overview of what the museum will look like and talked about the great access they had to experts who are knowledgeable about the two stars plus thousands of artifacts – mostly photographs and film clips.  It appears that this will be the… Read complete articleProgress on New Museum for Dressler House

Capital Projects in 2020

John Draper

At the Town’s Budget meeting on Thursday and Friday, funding was allocated for a large number of projects.  The ones relating to the Harbour and Marina were mentioned in yesterday’s long report but Public Works also had a list. Some are routine and some are not.  A large number of items are not really contentious or (in my opinion) of interest to the public.  Although all items are listed, only those of interest are detailed below. Approved 2020 Projects Sidewalk Construction  $200K Sidewalk Construction was put on hold pending development of a policy as to how priorities would be set. The final approved policy (see link below) ending up putting Abbott Boulevard as next on the list even though objections… Read complete articleCapital Projects in 2020

Town’s 2020 Budget Reviewed and Approved

John Draper

Over the last two days (Jan 9 and 10, 2020), Cobourg Council reviewed the entire Budget for 2020.  The goal was to have a tax levy increase of 1.9% but it came in at 2.2%. It would be impossible to provide a short summary of all the decisions made so this report will be just about highlights of the Operating budget. Yesterday’s post covered Community grants and another post tomorrow will cover Public Works Capital Projects. Included in the debate was a motion to increase Councillors’ salaries as approved in a 9 September 2019 Council meeting but subject to approval in the budget. A good number of items were extensively debated with several items added and others removed. The Councillors… Read complete articleTown’s 2020 Budget Reviewed and Approved

Council Chooses Community Grants for 2020

John Draper

As part of a long budget review session, Council today selected who would get community grants from the 2020 budget.  The budget for grants was limited to $50,000 but $143K was requested.  The total budget review meeting was scheduled to take at least from 10:00 pm to 5:00 pm but over-ran and will continue on Friday at 10:00 am (look for follow-up reports about this tomorrow or later). In advance of the meeting, Councillor Adam Bureau had worked with deputy mayor Suzanne Séguin to come up with a list of recipients and he went through these one by one.  Other councillors wanted additions and changes – decisions for four of them were deferred to the end of the review and… Read complete articleCouncil Chooses Community Grants for 2020