The four minute response works!

I couldn't have organised it any better, after extolling the virtues of the "four minute response" that the local police provide, at Council on Monday night, it happened.

A dispute between two feuding delegations - a local developer and an angry neighbour became unruly, the Mayor recessed Council and then when the disputants appeared to be becoming violent someone called the police. And within four minutes the officers appeared, without even sounding out of breath after ascending three flights of stairs two of Cobourg's finest entered the room. By that time the participants had calmed down and then the only thing that the officers could do was to determine if the assaulted one (he was barely touched but he claimed an assault had taken place) was going to lay charges and then they could leave.

Just another usual Council meeting!!

When will Cobourg debate the local policing issue?

Cobourg was promised a local debate, and it was scheduled for the 19th of November, but the CAO admitted that his figures would not be ready by that time and therefore a debate could not take place. It has now been rescheduled for a date that is yet to be determined. Unfortunately that puts the discussion into the time frame of the County, where they want the issue wrapped up by February at the latest. Conspiracy theorists will now speculate that Cobourg is going along with that time frame because they don't want to fight the issue and when it happens they, the Council, can claim that the "County did them in"

But how about this you folks on Council - have a vigorous discussion of the issue right now and make a definitive statement: Yes or No to the idea of OPP policing in Cobourg. Then let the County deal with that.

I fear that the County will feel embarrassed about imposing the OPP on Cobourg and Port Hope and want to do it as quietly as possible. Apart from Bill "Emperor" Pyatt and Hector "King of Northumberland" MacMillan, I can't see any other rube sticking their heads over the parapet on this one, just to stick it to Cobourg, although Bill Finlay loves to hate Cobourg. So the bigger the fuss Cobourg makes over this issue the harder it will be for the County to win the war of words.

Just to kick off the debate I have arranged to be on the agenda on Monday evening to talk about the "lessons learned from the County's presentations". This presentation falls into the "Why do I bother?" and I have mixed feelings about it. But I think it is absolutely essential that this issue be debated and disposed of in the most raucous fashion - lots of noise and thunder after all it's a major local cultural institution that will be disappearing. We had constables on the streets before we had councillors in the desks. Cobourg was founded as a Police Village, not a Mayor's gathering!

The Port Hope saga

Uranium has a half life of a couple of hundred thousand years, about the same length of time that the citizens of Port Hope will debate the radiation issue. Unfortunately in Port Hope you are either fer or agin the subject of Crane/Eldorado/Cameco being good for the Town or being the cause of mutants. Now the poop has really hit the fan. A local committee of people convinced, in the face of the lack of evidence to the contrary, that the effects of low level radiation cause health defects in certain members of the population. They, the committee, have been trying to get a health study funded. The study would investigate the effects of radiation upon citizens. Unable to convince governments to fund any studies they raised enough money to test nine people. The results of this $11,000 study found that some of the nine carried more than normal amounts of uranium.

Unfortunately the committee made the mistake of releasing the results in Toronto instead of locally. Naturally all major media outlets were on this study with inflamed headlines and camera time much to the consternation of the majority of Port Hope who are convinced that the committee is composed of cranks and malcontents. Hades hath no fury like the scorn of a enraged population.

Community reaction has been to demonise the committee and the few connected with the report and a public petition has been started to "regain the good name of the community". But this bypasses the main issue here - Port Hope needs a community health scan, something that all levels of government refuse to perform.

The bottom line here is we should not condemn those who are convinced that Port Hopers are irradiated but governments should perform a health inspection to prove that they aren't

Lest we forget

Lest we forget. How many times have we intoned those words on November 11th. Coming from a fourth generation military family, I was the only one who didn't make a career of it (much to my father's disgust) Remembrance Day is always a mix of pomp and pageantry for me.

This was only second time I have failed to attend the local ceremony in 22 years. But I will always remember the first parade I ever attended. Dressed in military khakis, I was nine years old, short trousers even, at the military school I attended. Greatcoats on and poppies on the lapel we formed up on what seemed to be the biggest patch of asphalt I have ever seen. Inspected by the School Commandant, shouted at by the senior boys who were the NCOs in charge, and marching to the school cenotaph, led by the contingent of "Old Boys", it rained, it always rained. After the usual prayers of remembrance we then marched to the chapel where under sets of dangling "colours" the usual Sunday service was conducted. So the pattern was set - next year I will try my hardest to attend, the local legion deserves nothing less than full attendance. The numbers on parade in Cobourg have obviously dwindled, so those able to march must. No excuses will be accepted next year.

We will remember them

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The Cobourg Police Meeting

As you might have gathered from the tardy post about the meeting, it failed to impress. A disappointing turnout that consisted of police volunteers, communicators and serving officers. The usual dog and pony show took up the first hour and then Cobourg Councillor Frost delivered an insightful and cutting analysis of the report - said it was vague, confusing and based on grants and rebates that could disappear as easily as they were put into the report. Other Councillors asked questions: Mayor D asked a setup question and gave the usual political mantra that Policing costs are escalating far higher and faster than other line items in the budget and we must look at alternatives (not mentioned is his desire to get rid of competing rivals - all the Mayors dislike the Police Chiefs because they earn more than the CAO and have a competing public persona). Hey does he think that will stop when the OPP takes over? Their costs are now increasing at 4% per annum and rising too!

I must say that the dog and pony show is more polished after 5 meetings. The technique for rebuttal is to answer the questions they can, with answers of their choosing, not necessarily correct, and ignoring the ones they don't like. For example in Port Hope they (the County) answered and debated the issue of rebates. This time when the issue was raised, in Cobourg, and rebates were called "compensation for reduced service" they ignored the statements. This time the question of communicators moving into OPP jobs was answered with "There will be opportunities to move into the vacant jobs" Well how 51 trained communicators can move into 14 clerical keyboarding jobs seamlessly wasn't answered.

Also I must raise the issue of the Mayor of Trent Hills moving into our meeting and lecturing us about how great the OPP really ticked me off. Imagine what his reaction would be if we went to Campbellford and told him how to run the Campbellford Foundation. Hector you are not the Mayor of Northumberland yet, that comes in two years time when amalgamation is forced on us by angry taxpayers fed up with paying for duplication. The Police first, then the County Official Plan and then the regional water authority and Bill Pyatt can become the new emperor of the biggest bureaucracy in Northumberland. Stay in Trent Hills Hector!

The next stage in this melodrama will be the debate on the 19th at Cobourg Council. After the dog and pony shows we now know the real issue in this debate - the level of service. Cobourg has two options to discuss: the standalone OPP and the County integrated model. The dog and pony show discusses the integrated model. This is where we will have 130 officers policing the County and we only pay for 109 - what a bargain. Now we get to pay twice for the same level of service, the 109 through a rigged County levy and the rest through our Provincial taxes. So who really pays for what?

But as we know what Cobourg and Port Hope thinks is beside the point we are outvoted and killed off with our own money.

Why do we bother

Why do we bother? A question asked of me all the time, especially by the love of my life, she has been asking this all the time I have known her. I attempt to answer in many ways but is all came together when I received a letter, ccd to many of us by the writer, that was written to Lloyd Williams after he had penned a muse wherein he pondered why Councils of the days have become distant from their constituents. He came to the conclusion that people don't bother. The letter below answers that muse. The writer expresses the answer so well, it deserves a reprint.

"I enjoyed your letter in the Cobourg Daily Star explaining that the Cobourg Council do not listen to delegations and that they ignore letters in the newspaper and ignore petitions.

What you say is completely true, yet that is not the reason that some of use continue to write to the press and to make the occasional presentation. The reason we do these things is to let the public know what is going on.

Over the past few years the government of the town has gradually turned into a regime that thrives on secrecy. Matters are rarely discussed in public council meetings, and Councillors Mutton and Frost get criticized by their colleagues for asking questions or making statements. It is clear that currently is not only citizens that are not welcome to make presentations, but also new council members have not learned to treat the government of the town as a secret society with arcane rules. Of course when you were a councillor you also tended to ask questions and listen to delegations.

It is possible that the Cobourg has always thrived on secret government , but my reading of past successes leads me to believe that it was not always so. In any event secrecy and exclusiveness is no longer part of the Canadian way of life. Access to information laws and the federal and provincial human rights legislation are aimed at make the country more accessible to all.

It is ironic that the mayor and council should have pushed through all the condominium growth in Cobourg, but are now intent on criticizing newcomers if they try to express opinions relating to the governance of the town. In doing so the council are denying themselves the chance to benefit from some very real talent and experience, even if sometimes this experience was gained outside Northumberland County.

We believe that writing letters to the paper and making presentations is a major way of letting citizens know what is going on. Secrecy thrives less successfully with open communication and an informed electorate.

Anyhow, thanks for the letter. I guess we will continue to bang ourheads against the wall"

The next big meeting

On Tuesday evening there is a meeting to hear about the plan, and how the County intends, to dispose of our local Police Service. Before all the new people to Town and those taxfighters amongst us get worked up about somebody daring to buck convention, by not accepting at face value the report prepared for the County lets look at the other side. Here is a copy of the remarks I intend to deliver at the Policing meeting on Wednesday evening. These remarks centre on three topics, one of which is the dubious savings calculations. The basic assumption made by realists is that the premise that the major portion of savings will come from new grants, that the urban municipalities will now qualify for, because somehow they have become Rural by joining in a large geographical area. These grants are not guaranteed and the programme is due for review in 2008.

The other point is that without grants and Police rebates, which are really compensatory sums of money given back to the municipalities for services not received, Cobourg's savings are zilch and the costs to go to the OPP will cost us a couple of million.

The last point is the important one. It does not matter how Cobourg and Port Hope vote on this issue, the Rurals can outvote us! A simple majority of votes can see our Police Services taken away from us, even the weighted voting cannot help us. And to rub salt into our wounds the way the Police costs have been calculated the rurals are using our savings to outvote us. As noted last week the savings calculations have been worked out in a non-traditional manner. The County percentage billing system, used in every other County programme, has been tossed aside in favour of a perversion called, "Fee for Service with Rural Adjustments"

So if you are remotely interested in any of this topic you should head out to the Lions' Centre on Elgin St. The meeting starts at 7pm but the real stuff gets going after the usual powerpoint bore at about 8.10pm.

The Port Hope Policing Meeting
Last Thursday I attended the Port Hope meeting and listened to the presentations. One hour and ten minutes after the meeting opened the Port Hope council was allowed to ask questions. Frankly I was disappointed with the quality of the questions that the collective councillors asked. In the big scheme of things playing to the local crowd by defending the quality of the Communications department didn't excuse the fact that they are gone.

In fact there were only two sparks. One when Deputy Mayor Jeff Lees asked about PSU rebates and the lack of performance to the contract they indicate and when he pointed out that the million dollars per year screening revenue will be lost. The answer to that was intriguing. "The RCMP is not happy with that information (CPIC) being sold privately." and implied that not only would the OPP be reluctant to screen but the practice may soon be outlawed! The PSU rebate question was answered indignantly and bureaucratically. "We always overestimate and Wellington County got back a million!" In a later answer to the question, "How will we get the screening money back if it goes to the County?" Mr Pyatt replied that Port Hope will get the money back in the County percentage 20%. The questioner quickly calculated that the amount coming back was only $59,000 different from the savings on the charts. His assessment - "For $59,000 folks, it just ain't worth it!"

The grant question was answered by Bill Pyatt who said that an assistant deputy had made the statement about the programme being a McGuinty program and it should stay, it is assumed by all that by just expanding the geographical area we automatically qualify, and that the expansion justifies the extra money going to the rurals.

Watkins was challenged by the Port Hope Police Association and asked if the Morley Hicks quote (this was where MH said that the offer of three years employment to all officers "makes the need for severances "unlikely"") was his or that of MH. Pyatt said that he summarized the 8 page opinion into the para in the report. "Were you aware that some of our provisions and benefits are superior to the OPP? Because if they are we have a case for severance!" replied the rep, Pyatt said that MH had copies of the 2 Collective Agreements (Cobourg & Port Hope) and none of the benefit schedules when they wrote the opinion. Interesting.

As to the question about levels of service, "We will have a police service of 130 of which the County will pay for 109" another memorable quote. As a provincial taxpayer we should be costing that. But it indicates that 109 will not provide the same level of service we are getting now.

So the questions just mount up. I was really surprised that nobody mentioned the fact that Port Hope has no chance in the voting to save what they have.