Tag: Municipal

Move to get Agreement on Rules for Transition House

John Draper

On January 10, at the Community Services, Protection, and Economic Development Standing Committee meeting, Dr. Hillary Allen & Mr. Jeff Crowley asked Council to implement an agreement with Northumberland County and Transition House similar to the agreement made by Whitby and Durham concerning an “emergency shelter” similar to the Transition house planned for 310 Division St. If implemented, it’s expected to help Transition House’s successful “operation and integration into the community”. Such an agreement between Cobourg, the County and Transition house would be a commitment to a wide range of actions that would be a “response to numerous failed examples across Ontario” – that is, in my words, it would go a long way to resolving concerns on the new… Read complete articleMove to get Agreement on Rules for Transition House

Draft 2024 Budget approved

John Draper

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

Community Grants Requests Get Trimmed

John Draper

One of the things that happens in Cobourg’s budget is a line item devoted to “Community Grants” – staff recommended $20K plus another $10K for “Contingency Grants During Year” but council ended up approving grants for $33,025 (or was it $37,025?).  The approval came at the end of a long second day reviewing the budget.  The meeting was scheduled to end at 4:00 pm and Mayor Cleveland and Councillor Mutton excused themselves around that time so the meeting continued with a quorum of five.  Before he left, Mayor Cleveland said that he did not approve of any grants at all – although perhaps in-kind grants would be OK – so he did not think he would be needed during the… Read complete articleCommunity Grants Requests Get Trimmed

Town of Cobourg Correspondence

John Draper

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

First Day of 2024 Budget Review

John Draper

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

Stormwater Fee not Fair for Some Taxpayers

John Draper

A year ago, Council agreed to change the method used to collect the tax required to operate Cobourg’s Stormwater system.  Instead of it being included in the regular tax bill, it would be added to the Hydro/water bill issued by LUSI.  Further, the tax would now be called a “charge” and would vary depending on a formula intended to correspond to usage – except that the formula has a major flaw. The thought was that stormwater run-off would depend on the type of property and its area but it did not consider properties that made no usage of stormwater services such as acreages.  As a result, some properties have been billed charges that are simply not appropriate.  To make the… Read complete articleStormwater Fee not Fair for Some Taxpayers

Cobourg’s Development Projects

John Draper

Cobourg’s planning department seems to be overloaded and has many projects late.  However, they recently made a tool available that lists what they are working on.  The list is long and includes a good number of projects with new housing.  Below is a summary of the significant projects and a map showing where they are.  The table lists significant projects and summarizes the details – see the Development Dashboard in resources below for more details.  It’s not easy to add up the numbers but there’s well over 800 residential units “on the planning books”.  Many of the new units are townhouses or multiplex units so should be a lower price range if not fully “affordable”.  I hope that our utility… Read complete articleCobourg’s Development Projects

Police Approve 2024 Budget

John Draper

Cobourg’s Police service is the single biggest line item on the Town’s budget but their increase in 2024 at 6.3% is less than Cobourg’s proposed increase of 8.06%.  A big plus for the Police is they partially support themselves with their business unit – in 2024, the business unit will contribute $2.1M or 22% of total cost. Another plus is that they provide a good amount of detail – including personnel count. This is important because I calculate that wages, salaries and benefits are 77% of Police costs. Separately, the Police provide detailed reports on their performance – see the Agendas of their monthly meetings. See link in Resources below for the statistics to November in December’s report. The board also hears… Read complete articlePolice Approve 2024 Budget