Cobourg’s Strategic Plan has had an unusual amount of input from the public and has had significant changes after it was supposedly complete.  At the Committee of the Whole Council meeting on April 23, a number of changes were made, notably to kill the idea that there might be boat slips added into the West Harbour.  This idea is of course part of the Waterfront master plan which has a number of other ideas for the Waterfront.  At Monday’s regular Council meeting (April 29), when the strategic plan (with amendments) came up for final approval, Councillor Brian Darling moved an amendment wanting to loosen the restriction on use of the West Harbour.  There was a good discussion before there was… Read complete articleAnother Amendment to Strategic Plan?

After a  long meeting, Council approved the budget for 2019 with an increase in overall spending of 4%. But because of growth in the Town (more properties paying taxes), the increase in your taxes will be 2%.  So if your property had an MPAC valuation increase the same as the average for the Town, the Town’s portion of your taxes will increase by 2% from last year.  But in the process of managing the budget, Councillors made some decisions – or maybe they were more like statements – about priorities and direction.  Some issues were covered under the heading Community Grants as reported yesterday (e.g. AGN, Santa Parade) but also discussed were IT (Information Technology) planning, Accessible Transit, Affordable Housing,… Read complete articleBudget Approved for 2019

At the end of a long council session that went until well after 10:00 pm last night, Council had a long debate on whether there was too big a risk in NOT proceeding with the Water Park which might result in getting sued versus continuing with what some councillors saw as a project that was not popular with citizens.  The vote was close at 4-3.  This may need to be confirmed at the regular council meeting next week but the decision was quite clear.  The reason that the Council meeting was long was because there were a large number of delegations – these will be the subject of a future post or two.  One of the delegations was by John… Read complete articleWater Park voted down

At the last Committee of the Whole (C.O.W.) meeting on January 28, it was apparent that some councillors want to withdraw approval for the Water Park on Cobourg’s East Beach.  A motion was made by Deputy Mayor Suzanne Séguin and then passed by Council that asked for a staff report on financial implications, safety concerns and legal impacts.  At the next C.O.W. meeting on February 19, Director of Community Services Dean Hustwick will provide his 40 page report (plus appendices) which I will try to summarize – although it’s still long!  Dean’s report refers to the various Master plans, discusses public support, reviews the consequences of changing the previous Council’s decision, provides the sequence of events leading to the decision,… Read complete articleWater Park Decision to be made