Cobourg's other blogosphere

In the "Cobourg Blog" here there is an article about the revised plan for the "frink". The history of this item is blurry but the upshot is that it will consume about $2 million dollars to build. On Monday evening the Council will vote on a revised plan, one that will keep the project below $2.4 million. The ironic part of this financial boondoggle is that as the costs go up, due to inflation and the lack of available contractors, the revising of the plan to fit the price leads to reductions of scope. What a display of "more for less"!

Anyway John Draper describes the revised plan as a concrete pad with an artifact in the middle. This artifact may or not be a fountain, but it is still an ugly P.O.S.

The sad part about all of this, according to local "frink" expert - Martin Partidge - is that a natural ice rink is already part of the park, all we have to do is fill with water and let it freeze naturally. Just like those rinks in Donegan Park and the private pad right next to Councillor MacCaughey's house on Henry St. Having an ice rink in the park can be done for nothing, but will be subject to the vagaries of the weather. The Mayor, once the concrete is in can be praised and damned at the same time: praised for a year round ice rink in mild weather and damned for the rest of the year for polluting the green space at the waterfront with a patch of useless concrete.

On the subject of the Cobourg blog one should visit it only for the fact that the most verbose of posters have discovered it. A fellow called "poetency" (we all know who he is), and Daniel J Christie have been offering comments faster than the internet can print them. Most entertaining!

But back to the subject of Council's role in the "frink", there is one very disturbing aspect to this. The engineering and development costs have been performed by Totten Sims & Hubicki (TSH) to the tune of about $110,000 dollars. Who has been authorising these payments and what ambiguous motion allowed it to happen? A real cause of concern for all those taxfighters out there

The Tuesday read

Not quite the last word on election signs
Last week the County banned election signs from all County lands, and that includes roadsides. This action drew the interest of Murray Weppler, a veteran campaigner and planter of thousands of signs, he pointed out that under Federal law nobody is allowed to hinder the "political message" unless it is for safety reasons. Seems straightforward to me; now all we need is a lawsuit against the County and we can get our political expression back.

The search for a Kraft replacement
The Mayor of Cobourg, as chair of the search committee for a replacement for Kraft, was reported as saying he has met with a few potential investors. That's OK for some but until he says who they are can we be sure that the site will remain an industrial employment site. It wouldn't surprise me if one of the groups was Mitch Goldhar's Smartcentre group. specialising in the turnaround from industrial to commercial and the attendant profits contained therein, Mr Goldhar has planted shopping malls in old industrial locations. That's what we don't need on that site - another shopping mall!

Let me be the first foolish one to say this in public
The other day I was almost involved in a traffic accident because of the person in front of me. It was a white box on small wheels driving in the middle of the road. The occupant of this travelling coffin is a disabled person, whom I have since discovered is deaf, so she would never hear any horn blown at her. This white box (a motorised wheelchair) was travelling so slowly that when I spoke to the person who almost hit me from behind said, "You were going so slowly I thought you were parking!". It is a bloody menace and so are the other motorised wheelchairs in the road. I can understand why they are not on the sidewalks but not all of the sidewalks are impassable. So "GET OFF THE ROAD." BTW if I am the only one of this opinion tell me.

Now we wait for the accounting
The Winter Festival appeared to be successful, in the Park. But did the visitors only stay in the Park or did they shop on the Main St. The Main St. didn't appear to be any busier than normal from where I was on Saturday, so who did benefit: the Merchants or the families in the Park, and congratulations to the setup people in the Park, or both. And did the sale of buttons cover the actual and total costs? The final report will tell.

The Police issue in Kenora
The Chief of Police stood up at a Police Services Board meeting last week and dared them to disband the Service. Interesting times up North but with ramifications down here. Read the story here.

A few thoughts

How about that black school?
What a bunch of nonsense, imagine that a segment of society that has trouble keeping their kids in school now demanding a school of their own. How about this - give the kids a decent school with good teachers and a commitment to excellence. I'm no educational expert but surely a good curriculum committee in the school board could write up a set of courses that would encourage all kids to stay in school, if the black kids think that by learning about "black values" would keep them in school go for it but within the system.

How soon we forget!
Talk of regional development, Hamilton Twp and Cobourg are thinking of sharing a land use for future job growth, kinda makes one think about the "Diamond Triangle". A regional development organisation that failed about fifteen years ago in a flash of municipal jealousies. I often wonder just how much institutional memory remains in the municipal sphere these days.

Goodbye to election signs
The County has banned election signs on all County roads. A silly decision, but completely predictable considering it came from the King of Northumberland - Big Hec - the Mayor of Trent Hills. One side effect would be the reduction of campaign budgets as only half the number of signs will be needed now. At $7.50 a pop a lot of money is going to be saved.

The last outrage for last
"Steve" is running scared of the prospect of his political situation worsening and is now trying to engineer a Federal election. He and a few stupid liberals are lusting for an election, he will get one, spend a lot of money and the electorate will not be impressed. We do not want an election, but we will be getting one. Sad, and a waste of money.

Mayhem at City Hall

Read this and thank our lucky stars that we don't take things at City Hall quite so seriously as this guy. Oh but wasn't the Mayor of Niagara falls attacked with an iron bar a few years back. Moral of the story - don't aggravate the voters! Gunman kills 5 at town hall in Missouri

The Monday read

The OPP 1, Kenora 0
The first phase of the destruction of the Kenora Police Service took place on Friday. The local Council voted, by one vote to switch to the OPP. In an email to the report .

Our fence sitting member caved for favor of the OPP beneath broken hearts and roars and tears.  This decision has destroyed our First Nations relations, and our future.  Kenora is not taking this sitting down.  Most sadly, a KPS employee lost her husband to a heart attack after the decision came down. Watch the news, we here are not done!!!

We shall be watching the report in Monday's edition of the Kenora Daily Miner (what a lovely name!)

A lone dissenter
In another local blog a discussion started and then fizzled out out quickly, about Offr Garrett's nomination for a Cross of Valour, when someone asked who would dissent in the prevailing opinion and atmosphere. Well it has been pointed out to me, and others that there is a dissenter, Basically Mr Beswetherick agrees that Chris Garrett should get an award for valour but not the Cross of Valour. His letter (here) outlining his reasons have been published in the Kingston Whig Standard and been forwarded to the local papers in Cobourg and Port Hope, the reader who forwarded this issue to the burdreport wonders if it will be published here. Just another point of view, one that is dismissed in Cobourg.

Civic participation in Cobourg

Cobourg held an open house the other day, for the public to look at the budget, and only five people turned up and three of them had vested interests. What does this say for the process? Open houses are an abomination in the democratic process. Good for consultants to tick off the "publc participation" box on a Gannt chart, but little else. If one has a dissenting opinion then the Council chamber is the place for it not a dreaded "open house"

The Doctor Recruitment process
Let me say now that the Mayor is right, the province is out of control in not taking control of the doctor shortage. Municipalities should not spend one dime of tax money to attract minidocs. What should really happen is that if doctors have to be attracted to the community there is a better way. Let the Rotary Club, or a consortium of service clubs, put up money for scholarships for Med students. Recruit local future doctors from the community, feed and nurture them and encourage them to come back home after training. A far better use for community funds than local monuments to the Rotary Club that when turned over to the Town require monstrous tax monies to maintain them - Park projects and the like.

Budget woes for the taxpayer

The annual budget dances have begun. These exercises designed to make the pols look good are consuming and fearful for taxpayers. Cobourg's taxpayers have been warned that the 4% preliminary budget can be reduced to an "ACCEPTABLE" 2% by cutting $212,000 of the planned budget. Given the size of the budget $12 million, just how hard can this be? If the gap is only 212K then we should be cutting at least twice that much and giving us a decrease because guess what, the profligate County wants to increase its budget by 8%.

In addition to dinging us with an unacceptable increase the County proposes by laying off workers at the MRF. Citing the need for replacement equipment they have proposed an equipment renewal programme that will cost jobs. Perhaps we wouldn't have been in this mess if the pointyheads at the County had set up reserve programmes for equipment when the MRF had been opened.

Try reading this and then go back to Facebook!

Reading this at breakfast kinda made me think - how about you? With friends like these ... Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook | Technology | The Guardian

The last words of a dead man - sad and yet uplifting

A regular blogger, who was a serving soldier in Iraq, was killed yesterday and his colleague posted his written death statement read it -Obsidian Wings: Andy Olmsted
We shall remember them!

This week's punditry

Opinions about news items of the week

• The great land sale in Cramahe:
  A story that appeared as a good news story here may actually, with a good investigation, be a story of intrigue and taxpayers' money paying off insiders. the story is simple, a consortium of local entrepreneurs buy low grade agricultural land as an investment because it is adjacent to a municipal industrial park, the land stays on the market because nobody wants low grade agricultural land, the land then is purchased by another local businessman and then flipped within a week to the Municipality for a large profit - because the land is now called "serviced industrial land". The transactions beg many questions, the big one being how and why did a "flipper" insert himself into Council's decision and so quickly? These transactions take time, the flip only took a week. That week was the time it took for the "flipper" to allow the real estate listing to expire and get the property from the sellers, leaving a seething real estate agent frothing at the mouth. Cramahe taxpayers may have been able to save $500,000 if the Mayor had bypassed the "flipper" The sad part about this deal is that in order to fulfill the potential of the land the Township will have to expand the overloaded sewage treatment plant at a cost of an estimated $18,000,000. Where is the Cramahe Ratepayers Group when we need it? Disbanded in a fit of sycophancy, that's where
  
• The Mayor's wrong and Frost is right
  In a puff piece designed to create tension, the CDS wrote about the way the two members of Council see the issues before them in the new year. Both men saw the same issues quite differently, the Mayor sees nothing wrong with this as he says, "All members of Council have the right to express themselves" But the Mayor also has the obligation to listen to the opinions, but obviously he hasn't as its "his way or the highway". My new year's resolution if I was PD would be to listen to Councillor Frost, something he hasn't done for months as he can get his way any night of Council with his band of lackeys. However their prognostications are not what prompted me to comment. The supercilious way that the Mayor talks about "future projects not costing the taxpayers a dime" is more than a little grating. The projects are funded from the investment revenue from the Industrial Park and the municipally owned hydro utility. These are revenues that should go into the bottom line of the budget to reduce taxes not to be used as Council's play money.


• The new guy at the Brighton Indie is wrong
  The Brighton Independent has a new owner - Metroland - and a new editor. Without wanting to put up his hackles let me point out that in his editorial this week where he devotes a great deal of ink to what the County should do; he mentions County policing "The county politicians must decide once and for all if they can put their territorial bickering behind them to settle the long-burning issue of a new county-wide police force. A perfectly well-reasoned plan that could save county taxpayers more than $3 million a year in policing costs, it quickly fell victim to internal discord between municipalities. As always, Cobourg and Port Hope can make the county-wide police force a reality – or sink it forever." Somebody should tell this fellow that Cobourg and Port Hope have no influence whatsoever in this decision. It is the tyranny of the majority that will determine the policing option. To sum up; not only will the county midget municipalities take the increased grant money but vote to take away our police forces. If the County levy was applied in this case nobody would vote for the policing proposal. The midgets have stolen the urbans money and then will stick it to them in the vote. The final revenge of the Rubes!


• More non-fiction for the Cobourg taxpayer - the WalMart application
  Now for the sequel: Walmart has applied for a store expansion. They want to expand the 116,000 sf store to 176,000sf. As part of the details they have to prepare a "Market Impact Study - MIS". These studies are routinely filed if an application greater than 25,000sf is contemplated. These studies, as a former developer told me, "Are exercises in the black arts". I would state pure fiction. Last time around Walmart proved to the community that it had sucked up all the available commercial capacity. Six years later and a population increase of less than a thousand, they are asking for more commercial capacity. I wonder where it will all come from? Last time around a firm called Malone, Given Parsons wrote the study and it was peer reviewed by another company, the name escapes me. Now the MIS has been given to a company called Tate Economic Research and will be peer reviewed by Malone, Given Parsons. Anybody see the irony and incestuousness here?
  

The first day of work

So what are you doing here? You're at work dammit, so get back to it. Seriously glad to have you here, but let me warn you there is little profundity in this post. A very choppy seasonal break left me without ambition or attitude. I did discover James McMurtry, a progressive singer of topical lyrics, check this out (look for the free download tab). A very different "God Bless America.

Forget the New Year's predictions from me how about some from you folks. How about your suggestions for the following categories:

• The big municipal issue for 2008
• next year's percentage tax increase
• Cobourg's emerging personalities, after all we have had enough of the usual suspects haven't we. Let's look for some new people to bring the issues to the fore.
• How long will the new guys last in the face of Council's rigid positions?

So let's hear it for your ideas about the New year.

Now for something completely different. When I want to idle the time away, and the internet is a perfect place for that, I quite often click on the button at the top of the Burdreport that is called "next blog" and am transported into the blogosphere. This blog was the one that made me think the most. I really don't know what to think of it except the writer must be a really creative idler. I wonder what he really thinks?