The latest post on Cobourg News has produced the most fiery posts from all of the commenters yet in the history of the blog. Boy are these people angry, sitting behind keyboards just pounding away with red hot fingers steam coming from all their body cavities.
Well that sentence may be a little inflammatory but you get the idea.
The object of their hosepipe prose is the Northumberland County Council. Just who are they to thwart the will of the people of Cobourg? Shut down the existing Shelter for Transients and the Homeless! Do not allow the new Shelter to open unless the County complies with a dubious and probably illegal bylaw! These are the cries from the Cobourg Mayor who for many hours, fights with his fellow Councillors. Using any argument possible to prove that he is right and they, because they do not like him personally, will not listen to anything he says.
In a five hour marathon County Council meeting this week the existing Shelter came to the Chambers to tell the County that the operation of the Shelter was in danger of not being able to cater to the growing number of homeless people in Cobourg and the area. Both the Executive Director and the Chair of the Board of Transition House (TH), which is funded by the County to house 22 residents told the Council that due to new requirements from the Cobourg Fire Department occupancy would be reduced from 22 to 10, and with the non-opening of the new Shelter people would be out in the cold very soon.
Simple story – TH was operating under a fire inspection from July 2023 to July 2024 with an approved occupancy of 22 residents. The latest fire inspection, in July 2024 took place and about ten remedial actions were asked for. All of the ten were quickly complied with except the requirement to reduce the occupancy to 10. Discussions took place over the Summer about this requirement but an order was issued by the Fire Inspector to comply by the end of October. Attempts to appeal this order were useless because the person they had to appeal to was on vacation until the middle of November. It should be noted that the big reason for the lack of urgency to comply was the fact that in the late Summer the new Shelter was going to be opened and TH’s efforts were geared to that opening as the operator of the new Shelter.
Now to the charge of “Dirty Politics” We have a bunch of angry people who have been urging the Mayor of Cobourg, who, although a member of the Council has ‘self-ostracised’ himself from the group stating many times “They (the other members) do not like me or what I say.” Admitting in a podcast to Robert Washburn listen here (you will have to click on the embedded link called The Show) he may have burned his “Political Capital” and the ability to get things done at the County level. This level of independence is not working for him and that may be intentional as he shows no sign of wanting to be a collaborative politician.
Charging into the discussion he demanded answers from the TH reps as though he was in a courtroom punching the bad guys. One asks, as the questions rolled in – to what end? All he was doing was trying to prove that Transition House was an unfit operator. Why would he do this?
At the same time as the Mayor of Cobourg was performing at the County HQ his compliant Council was working behind closed doors in a secret meeting discussing the request from the County that Cobourg send a delegation to County Council to discuss the ECE bylaw’s conditions that prevented the County from opening the new Shelter. In open session the Council, which by this time, had dwindled to the minimum quorum of three tried to pass a motion telling the County to come to Cobourg to discuss the issue – power politics to the fore! By the time the Chair of Council came to call the vote one member had logged off the Zoom and the quorum disappeared. Ooops we cannot continue the meeting. OK let’s do this later in the day. Such is the organisation of the current Council.
Anyway what is all this to do with the plight of the Homeless? Everything. The new Shelter cannot open because of the demonstrated opposition to it by the Mayor of Cobourg and his sycophants (we call them sycophants because there is no public opposition from any Council member to this approach) on the Cobourg Council. The people needing shelter and warmth this Winter are being denied it, and we know that at least 11 people from the encampment are ready to move into 310, because of what a commenter on Cobourg News wrote – “DIRTY POLITICS”
We at the BurdReport are saying today, “Get to work, forget the damned egos, get over your anger, if you have to meet at the Best Western – not at your political power centres do so, hash this thing out!”
Somewhere in this stupidity the plight of the homeless has been forgotten – Shameful
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