“OK, so you’ve panned the BTF’s report. If you had been a on the BTF, what ideas/programs/solutions would you have advocated? Please include sources and numbers. Looking forward to your reply. This challenge came in a comment to my post on the Cobourg News site. We are happy to respond. Firstly, as we reported the Budget Task Force (BTF) report...
The Budgeteers have delivered, albeit two months late. It is an underwhelming document (read it here) simply because of the lack of specifics as opposed to mantras and platitudes. To put it bluntly we could have saved $20,000 and a lot of volunteer labour by just recycling most of the “Free- Marketeer’s” comments from the various posts comments, on recent...
Quite frankly we are not surprised just another victim of the Mayor’s toxic HR management.
He wasted his time! Just watched the latest Cobourg Council Meeting held December 1st . That’s nearly three hours of my life I won’t get back. I say this as a dispassionate watcher of many Council Meetings and my hat goes off to the Councillors who actually attended this meeting. Total waste of their time and ours for watching. The...
Watching the saga of the Mayor, and his autocratacism, in the debate about the Police budget, he is obviously tilting at windmills in his efforts to be the big cheese. If he succeeds in his effort to get a 4% increase as he autocratically decreed a couple of months ago, as opposed to the 20% increase that the Chief of...
The wonder of the interwebthingy is that you can stay in touch no matter where one is. We are currently in IndoChina – really the area’s name has changed so many time I can’t keep up. But we can still see what is happening in little ole Cobourg – Sloburg no more! Police budget: A bit of a problem for...
We went to a meeting last week and discussed the new Zoning By-Law (ZBL). In the small “Citizens’ Forum” easels held up many placards extolling the changes to the existing bylaw which were readily explained by members of the Consultant’s team. The new ZBL (read it here) is half the size of the old one – 125 pages compared to...
Just what is going on in Northumberland County, and is it due to Strong Mayor Powers (SMP)? Two high profile firings are hard to comprehend without an explanation. That is what is happening in Northumberland County government as well as in the Port Hope municipal office. In Jennifer Moore’s case the County Council went into a closed session meeting, on...
Now the ‘tick box’ on the Gantt chart of the 202 Second St planning application has been ‘ticked’ let’s look at the consequence of this part of the process. The Public Meeting has taken place and the application moves forward against a huge outcry from four former Mayors the local Heritage group and many Citizens. Fair to say this is...
This monstrosity of a building will not be the final product of a planning application by Dez Developments. Everybody in the system knows this and even the Developer knows that there is not a hope in hell that this building will get built in the form of the application submitted. Just remember folks this is a ‘blue-sky’ application designed to...
The budgeteers that is! A new ad-hoc committee previously announced was revealed to the Community on Wednesday 9th September, with the mandate of preparing budget recommendations to the Mayor and Council. The committee will report back in early October. In the presser this morning the Mayor made a speech – hyperbolic to the extreme – “Let me start by...
Since Cobourg has rejigged the Council/ Standing Committee meetings schedules Councillors and the Mayor only have to attend two Statutory meetings in September. It appears that may be too much for them. An announcement appeared today: “A Council committee meeting was cancelled today at the last minute due to a lack of quorum. Both Mayor Cleveland and Councillor Randy Barber...
This story was one of my first for a local publication. Written in 2008.
This article was about the history of coffeeshops and the coffeeshops in Cobourg in 2008
There are 52 of them – Jackson Houses; a basic Canadian style of design that was built by Reuben Jackson...
In 2008 the ‘mancave’ craze was just getting to be a big thing as the price of electronics was getting...
After 83 years the Pontiac Auto Manufacturing section of General Motors, came to an end. This article tracked the Pontiac...
We are inveterate travellers. Accustomed to many travels not much fazes us these day. This pic taken in India shows how we blend in to the environment.
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