Cobourg News Blog

The first regular Council meeting in 2024 was a marathon.  In addition to passing the budget, re-considering Stormwater fees and taking action on Transition House (see earlier reports on this blog), Council also heard an update on the leasing of the Memorial Arena as a Fire fighters’ museum, approved a request to make an exemption on a downtown sign that contravenes Heritage rules and heard about a significant increase in Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.  Firefighters gave a verbal report with little information but there is much more detailed information in their planned report to the Community Services, Protection, and Economic Development Standing Committee on February 7. (See the Agenda in Resources).  The sign is for Jacqueline Pennington’s new office… Read complete articleMore on Busy Council Meeting

At the Council meeting on Wednesday January 31, the gallery was full and even overflowed into the Courthouse. Most of these citizens were interested in hearing what Council might do to resolve the unfair stormwater fees for owners of large rural properties.  There were about 8 presenters – starting with Colline Bell who had previously spoken to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Standing Committee on the 10th of January (see report on Cobourg News Blog – link in resources). Colline pointed out that unlike a tax, a “user fee may only be charged in exchange for a specific service offered to the person paying the fee” yet Colline and other presenters said that they did not use any stormwater infrastructure… Read complete articleStormwater Fee Schedule to be Reviewed

Despite several contentious items, when all debate was finished at the regular Council meeting on 31 January, Council approved the draft 2024 budget with no changes. Mayor Cleveland had one last try at reforms and he wanted to make drastic changes to the Community Grant Process but in the end, there were few changes to the budget. The budget increased by 9.91% but because of growth in the Town’s tax base of 1.85%, the increase in the levy is 8.06%. The issue of Stormwater fees was discussed but did not affect the budget; there was more discussion on Transition House as well as a few other items – stay tuned for reports on these.  It was a marathon meeting and… Read complete articleCouncil Approves 2024 Budget – Unchanged

On January 18, Council had their second day of budget review and it was apparent that an important reason for the large planned budget increase is the addition of more staff. Therefore they spent most time on that. But in the end not much changed. There were no significant deletions, only one new hire was eliminated and in fact some items were added including a small increase in Councillor salaries.  But some key decisions were made including on the beach lifeguards, Centennial Pool operation in 2024, a test of a fixed route Transit system and a number of other items. All Councillors participated in the debates but often failed to get support for their particular ideas to save money. And,… Read complete articleDraft 2024 Budget approved

Up until this year, Official Correspondence received by the Town was provided to Council and the Public as part of the Agenda of the regular Council meeting. But with the new Governance structure, all Correspondence is now handled differently – it’s listed every Friday at 4 pm on the escribe calendar. Correspondence items are listed as a “Consent Agenda” with links so you can see the full text. The intent is that they all will be received for “Information purposes” unless extracted for attention in the Council meeting at the end of the month. A note on the Correspondence Agenda says that this can be done by a member of Council or Director at any time. So let’s look at what all this… Read complete articleTown of Cobourg Correspondence

In previous years, council scheduled 2 or 3 days to review the budget but this year only one day was scheduled and no surprise, it was not enough. So there’s no decision yet on the 2024 budget although we did get some answers. The Police budget will be as submitted – 6.3%; there were few useful results from the budget survey with few respondents and no unexpected results.  Mayor Cleveland pushed the idea that staff are the experts so their recommendations should be accepted or we should be ready to accept a reduction in services. Unfortunately Lucas is having a hard time getting a prioritized list of which services might be reduced or eliminated.  It’s not clear Lucas wants to… Read complete articleFirst Day of 2024 Budget Review