Cobourg Blog

Kudos to Councillor Frost for wanting monthly, instead of quarterly reports on Cobourg’s Police Department spending. According to the Star, “last year the police budget was significantly over budget in the salaries/benefits category for a variety of reasons including excessive overtime due to illness and a huge vacation pay out to Chief Clement which the police board authorized”.
This year again, Cobourg PS are headed for a sea of red ink on salaries and Cobourg ratepayers have Constable Nelles - our half-million-dollar policeman - back on the payroll.
Closer supervision is clearly necessary because the current police management seems unable to get a grip on finances. It was interesting to note that the deputy chief did not or could not explain the $100,000 in overspending on salaries and benefits.

Some people have said they don’t like the Waterfront Rotary Park development as proposed. There are concerns about ongoing cost, noise from skating, loss of park open space and a general concern (mostly from Councillor Miriam Mutton) about lack of sufficient planning and consultation. This is not a new idea, proposals were shown to the public for comment several years ago - the current idea was well received then. One counter proposal was from Miriam - do I detect sour grapes here? Concerns about noise and night time activity - presumably from nearby residents - should not be an issue since the plan was in place well before the condos were sold.

The DBIA likes the idea - and so they should. A pleasant waterfront with winter activities will make downtown more attractive. The concerns about concrete/water/ice covering green space are misplaced - there is still a lot of green space and there were never plans to plant trees or provide picnic benches. This is a complement to Victoria Park - not a replacement.

But the big item that is mostly overlooked is the fact that “(Provincial) funding for this program was specifically allocated for this project and was non-transferable” (quote per Cobourg Star from David Peacock). So we either take the $1.35M from McGuinty and enhance our waterfront or we don’t. We can’t move skating elsewhere and we can’t make major changes because then there would be no $1.35M and the project would die.

Let’s move on and support this project - sometimes the council gets it right.

According to the Star, the Park Theatre (also known as the Alcatraz) is to become a live theatre with professional performers. The good news is that Cobourg sorely needs this and further good news is that a private company can do it quickly (September!) with minimal red tape.

Some of the questions raised are:

• What will this do to existing live art - for example Northumberland Players?
• If current artistic groups are stuggling, how can a fully professional theatre get enough patrons since they’ll have more perfomances and higher prices? It would have to attract people from outside Cobourg. If they do, that’s good - I think.
• If the theatre seats over 400 people, where are the approx 200 cars going to park?

Anyway, as a minimum, it’s a good experiment to see whether Cobourg deserves a live theatre. Let’s hope the rental fee is reasonable enough to allow some of the existing groups an alternative to the Capitol, Victoria hall, various Churches, the Best Western and the Lions Centre. And let’s hope the audience grows significantly - it will need to!

John Draper

Went to my favourite suds retailer to replenish supplies. On entering I was greeted by the enticing odours of spilled, stale beer. Directed my gaze downward to the floor to find out why my feet were sticking to it. Saw splotches of a dark grey substance and found the source of the reek.
Emboldened myself to ask the winsome lass behind the counter, “do you ever clean this floor?”
Received frown and was answered curtly “we don’t have time because of the LCBO!”
Took this to mean that they are stretched beyond the limit, because they have to take in LCBO empties.
Bought beer anyway.

One of the best things the last council did (with help from Rotary) was to set-up the park that I will always think of as “Diversey Park”. (Which begs the question - does it have a name?) And now the Provincial Government wants to return some of our taxes by way of a grant to pay most of the cost of a fountain and ice-skating rink there. (Another question - if we don’t do the project, do we lose this grant - $1.3M?).

So wouldn’t it be great to have a fountain there in Summer? Right where a lot of people can see it and get to it. Let’s remember that part of the council operating budget has to be for projects to make us feel good about living here. We have clean streets (we could save money by letting that lapse), we have a good looking waterfront (vandalized items are fixed), King street looks good, roads are in good shape (compared to Port Hope), the flowers around Victoria Hall are good, etc etc - we don’t need to do these things - they are just good to have. So let’s have a fountain (and rink in winter) - the cost to us is about a third of what it would be if we paid the whole shot.

Let’s make Cobourg an even better place to be.

As an aside, it would be good if someone could suggest where all the visitors to our waterfront are going to park!

John Draper

A glance at the per capita policing costs (year 2005) of Cobourg, Port Hope and neighboring municipalities shows the problem Cobourg – and Port Hope - taxpayers are facing.

Cobourg & Hamilton TWP $194.33
Port Hope $239.97
Alnwick/Haldimand $129.62
Cramahe $126.36
Brighton $107.50

Since about 90% of policing costs are salaries, any savings to Cobourg taxpayers have to come from pruning the top heavy management of the Cobourg Police Force.
And this is what any move to OPP policing is all about.

At first look, the price for OPP Policing of Cobourg would be $4,129,000 compared to the current 2007 budget of $4,227,000. This seems to be close to the same price. Their proposal is for a dedicated stand-alone group that would offer identical service as offered now. Most employees and all officers (except presumably for the chief) would be offered employment. They would use the same building that Cobourg Police uses and would be separate from the current Cobourg OPP detachment. So the discussion has to be on quality, not price - although we would save money on Capital items such as Communication systems.

1. Although the individuals in the Cobourg Force are of a high standard (generally), they do not have direct access to the extensive OPP resources - these include special squads, dedicated groups for various crimes, training, IT departments etc.
2. The Cobourg Force cannot offer the same career paths for senior officers - so with the status quo, we would expect either weaker senior staff performance or poor continuity compared to the OPP alternative.
3. With all Cobourg OPP officers being mostly the same individuals but with better management and support, there is no downside at all!

Stan Frost has called for public meetings no later than early June - this should help keep the discussion going. Let’s put aside emotion and get ourselves a good, highly professional Police Force.

John Draper

The word is out. A public information session will be held at Victoria Hall on Tuesday, 8 May 2006, to discuss construction of a skating rink, washrooms perhaps, a shelter and a chilling plant. No time has been set.

Will this project include parking for busses on Albert Street? Probably. Should we be alarmed? We should.

The public meeting has not been advertised so far. Why does public works coordinator Councillor McCaughey ignore the protocol for advertising public meetings? Is this the new face of council communications?

One has to ask if the council has been involved and, if not, why not? Who will pay for this project? What’s more, can we afford it? The park area dedicated to Dr. Bob Scott is now public property. It is owned by the town. Deputy Mayor Brocanier been quoted as saying he doesn’t think public money is involved? Is something fishy is going on?

Let everything be brought out into the open or we’ll be again saying there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark.

Let everyone attend this ‘public information session’ and ask questions. There’s enough disfigurement of public places and spaces without countenancing any more. Watch this space for developments.