Cobourg News Blog

In November 2020, KPMG delivered a report to Council outlining what residents thought of the services provided by the Town.  Then in October 2022, with Provincial funding, the Town hired Customer Service Professionals Network (CSPN) to take it further and create a “Customer Service Strategy & Implementation Plan”.  They started with another public survey. KPMG’s survey had managed to get 307 responses and CSPN’s got 110. (Another one by the Town got 219, in all cases, not many!). CSPN also surveyed employees, councillors and four public focus-groups. At the Committee of the whole meeting on Monday (15 May, 2023), Shawn Ashley of CSPN presented their report to Council and provided a summary.  The report is in Resources below. A copy of… Read complete articleUpdate on Customer Service Plan

The Town’s web site is getting quite bad.  There’s no acknowledgement by the Town but on Friday May 12, major sections of the web site were missing – both the Contact page and the News Centre were down.  Instead, there were announcements on Facebook – that’s pathetic and missing major segments of Cobourg’s population.  One such announcement was that “there will be a Special Closed session Council Meeting on Monday, May 15, at 1:00 pm for an Equity Diversity and Inclusion training session.”  That’s perhaps in response to a motion by Adam Bureau in late April that the Council receive “Harm reduction” training.  Apart from missing pages, other pages are long out of date – e.g. the Heritage page still… Read complete articleTown’s Web site and Communication Failing

Council is planning a different way to create the 2022 – 2026 Strategic Plan.  The previous plan was done by Councillors in an open session and guided by a facilitator, Carolyn Kearns. The 1½ day session in February 2019, ended up with a draft that was then opened up for public comment – and there was plenty of that.  The current budget includes $20K for preparation of the plan although Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty wanted to save this by having staff do the work.  Mayor Lucas Cleveland said that $20K was too little. Others disagreed and the budget ended up with $20K included.  Apparently lost in the debate was the choice of how to create a Strategic Plan. It seems that it… Read complete articleStrategic Plan for 2022-2026

I’m sure I heard Mayor Lucas Cleveland comment a while back that the Town’s web site badly needed fixing but so far there’s no sign of anything being done. Parts of it are OK (escribe and engagecobourg) but they are quite separate web sites.  Navigation is poor but that’s supposed to be remedied by a search function – except that this has not worked for some months.  Part of the problem is that there are many missing items and dead links but the idea is that non-technical staff can do the work of keeping them up to date.  What’s needed is a dedicated web site person – that’s in addition to a web site that works properly.  And don’t give… Read complete articleWhen will Cobourg’s web site get fixed?

At the Committee of the Whole (CoW) Council meeting on 24 April, Council debated the recommendation from Staff (Director Brent Larmer) on the next steps in reviewing a change in how Council would operate. Their recommendations were outlined in an earlier Post (see resources below) but at the meeting, Brent presented a comprehensive look at what is proposed complete with pros and cons. Although the recommended motion would not have prevented any changes, Councillor Miriam Mutton convinced council to broaden the scope – see final motion below. The plan includes a timeline with two public meetings and an online survey which has already started. Details will be worked out by a Governance Review Working Group which will include Randy Barber… Read complete articleFollow up on Governance