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

Council urged to act on Climate Emergency Declaration

John Draper

At Monday’s Committee of the Whole Council Meeting, four citizens asked Council to be sure to follow up on their declaration of a Climate Emergency.  Bruce Bellaire represented the Blue Dot group and asked that sufficient budget funds be allocated to an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP), a Green Development Standard (GDS) and for one staff person to be hired to manage these over a two year period.  Richard Tyssen attempted to put dollar estimates on these objectives and also asked for progress on the Tannery Secondary Plan.  Gudron Ludorf – Weaver (Gigi) of Sustainable Cobourg supported these requests and said that “these are not normal circumstances”.  At the forum at the end of the meeting when any citizen can… Read complete articleCouncil urged to act on Climate Emergency Declaration

Rogers Hometown Hockey Draws Big Crowd

John Draper

After a snow sprinkle on Saturday morning, the weather was perfect for a mid winter’s day in Cobourg for the Roger’s Hometown Hockey event.  It was held in the Marina parking lot – re-christened the Cobourg West Harbour for the occasion.  Unless you were a hockey fan, it was not clear what exactly the event was – just that it would appeal to Hockey fans, it was free and would be a family event.  It also had a couple of food vendors (a Pizza Truck and a Sobey’s tent with hot dogs) but I’d guess this would not be enough for many so hopefully downtown restaurants were busy.  During most of the time, the area appeared moderately busy with a… Read complete articleRogers Hometown Hockey Draws Big Crowd

More Focus on Entertainment in Cobourg

John Draper

The New Year brings a new web site – CobourgCalendar.ca  The content is not new, it has been moved from the Cobourg Internet Entertainment pages.  This section of the Cobourg Internet site has been the most popular so a separate site is warranted. Also, citizen input to the Cultural Plan asked for the Town to do a better job of collecting event information and making it available to the public, but currently, the Town’s event pages focus on their own events.  They do a good job of publicizing Library events and events whose tickets are sold at the Concert Hall Box office but that’s pretty much it.  So for information on other events, Cobourg Citizens must either rely on word… Read complete articleMore Focus on Entertainment in Cobourg

New Year’s Levee – 2020

John Draper

Once again, Cobourg’s Mayor and Councillors welcomed citizens to a “Levee” to welcome the New Year.  Held today in the Concert Hall at Victoria hall, it was well attended with well over 100 citizens. It featured catering by the Dutch Oven and included the ever popular Christmas Cake provided by Weston Bakery.  Toni Galea greeted everyone at the door where we all signed in.  The band was smaller than previously (8 musicians) and there were more tables so everyone was able to be seated.  All councillors were there and shook hands with everyone – missing was Brian Darling who had a “massive cold”.  The crowd included MP Philip Lawrence, MPP David Piccini, Police Chief Paul Vandegraaf, Police Board Chair Dean… Read complete articleNew Year’s Levee – 2020

Hot topics in 2019

John Draper

Although major newspapers and magazines (e.g. Time) publish Person of the Year and News of the Year, these are selected by journalists and not the readers of these publications.  But the blog format provides a way of measuring interest – the number of hits and the number of comments.  Although the Cobourg News Blog email goes out to about 1200 subscribers, not everyone clicks on the link to read more.  And although others look at the home page, not everyone goes past that to the detailed articles. So what are Cobourg people really interested in? I have listed below what people read about in 2019 with ranking based on hits.  Note that unlike many web sites, the count of hits… Read complete articleHot topics in 2019