At the June 21 Committee of the Whole (CoW) Council Meeting, the Sustainability & Climate Emergency Advisory Committee (SCEAC) recommended that Council proceed with installing eight Electric Vehicle (EV) Chargers at three locations in Town to take advantage of a $40K grant from Natural Resources Canada.  However, Councillors were concerned that they did not have enough information on who would use the stations and ongoing costs to the Town.  Brent Larmer advised that David Kuhnke, (representing EV owners in Cobourg) would be presenting at the next regular Council meeting on 28 June, so Council decided to defer a decision pending his input and a report from Staff.  David’s presentation did not answer all the questions so a decision has not… Read complete articleInstalling more EV chargers in Cobourg

Mayor John Henderson has been in talks for some time with Port Hope’s Mayor Bob Sanderson and Hamilton Mayor Bill Cane about an integrated Transit system covering all three Towns.  Currently Cobourg operates two systems – regular transit operating two one hour loops and a “Wheels” on-demand service with smaller buses providing service for residents who cannot use regular buses.  Instead of that, Judy Smith proposes using much smaller fully accessible buses to provide on-demand door to door service for everyone.  All rides would be booked and paid for using an app and the usual wait would be no more than half an hour.  Judy is the Climate Change Coordinator for the Town of Cobourg and Environmental Officer for the… Read complete articleAn Innovative Transit system

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

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