So, the question is - how much do we want to pay?

The Fullertons, the family that has owned the property at 100 Bagot St, since 1916, have a solution to the problem of beach access. They have offered to sell a part of their undevelopable land to the Town for $345,000. They justify the price as less than market value of the land, if an upzoned value was applied, because they also want a solution. But as with all good negotiators, Mr Morand, back in the picture as the spokesman, says that there will be no termination of a considered lawsuit if the Town does not give a speedy response.

So the question is this - is $345,000 a good price for the Town to pay? As the local editorialist from the NToday.com opined on Friday, it may be high but worth it and called for the Council to stop being petty and negotiate a resolution. The BurdReport's position is simple, the Northern boundary must be in line with the boundary of the High School's property, which is also the same as the Legion Village's property all the way to the beach. Pay the money and let sleeping dogs lie. There must also be a public subscription campaign the way the Victoria Park extension was funded. If Cobourgers want the beach they cannot have it handed to them by a benevolent Council, they must pay for some it themselves!

There is a burning rage amongst old Toronto Sun staffers to recreate themselves and whenever Sun Media lays another person off, consolidates offices and services or just shuts local newspapers down the writers of this website (the TorontoSunFamily) go nuts and encourage the affected personnel to recreate the "miracle of the TO Sun". Well today's post on the TSF site announces that in Hinton Alberta, four ex-staffers have done just that. An online version and a print edition are going out weekly, here is the online version and investigation reveals of the stafff on board two are in sales so the emphasis is on ad revenue. It will be interesting to see if the traditional model of "one news and two ad people" can cut it in the world of fast diminishing ad revenue and a weak online presence can be a commercial success that will support four sets of wages. Good luck to them for trying.

Elvis is alive and seen in Cobourg

Spotted in a wine bar?? Elvis was in Cobourg last night. One of the sights of the waterfront festival. The second full day seemed to be an event that was running out of steam, at 5pm anyway. The food vendors and the Midway people were standing around looking at each other and scanning for customers - let's hope that today will be better; it is Friday after all!

The death of an urban legend. One of the local tales, that circulated really fast this week, and spread by gossips who should have known better, it even surfaced at Rotary on Friday, by way of the Dutch Oven, was a story about one of the local Police - Sgt. (well he was last week) Delkie Curtis. A bit of a lad this fellow stands about five foot ten and not an impressive looking (no muscle builder is he) guy - just your normal hard-working enforcer of the law.
The story that came back to me by way of a brother-in-law fresh from a trip at the do'nut shop was, "Hey have you heard that Delkie Curtis got pummeled into the ground by seven guys outside Kelly's the other night?" With ears perked I tucked the info away and then yesterday I had a chance to ask his Boss - the Chief about it. Roaring with laughter he chortled, "That's just an urban legend, do you think that we wouldn't have heard about it if it had happened?" Then last night riding through the park I spotted the man himself, DC, and asked him. "I've had people coming up to me all week asking how I am" he said. Besides it wasn't seven guys it was only two but one of was a big 'un, and Greg McCurdy took him down" Referring to an arrest his platoon made last week. Some one watching must have been either in the cups or wanted to stretch an overworked imagination and told his pals. A good story though!

Videos of our Senate at work. Videos have appeared on Youtube that show a Senate committee in dispute about almost everything on the agenda. Click here to go to the "video page" to see them

At least this ride had riders! - well only two.

Help Deputy Dave lose 100lbs in a year

Deputy Chief Dave Cromlish, of the Cobourg Police Services is determined to change his lifestyle and in the process lose weight. With the aid of his personal trainer - Andrea Johnson (both are seen in the pic on the right), of Bodilogix, a personal training outfit located on Ontario St. in Cobourg.
He intends to drop 100 lbs. In fact he started the regimen a week ago and has already lost 12.5 lbs from a high of 336. Read about the 100lb challenge at nocopoutchallenge.ca and check out the blogs. A valiant cause and we wish you well Dave, in your quest. Anybody willing to do such a public thing deserves support, so go to the website and discover how you can help Dave lose100lbs and pledge to raise money for a new ECG machine at the NHH.


Had a chance to ask the Chief of Police about the news of Troy Davey's appeal. He had lots of praise for the Crowns involved as they had made great efforts to keep the family in the loop during their trying time.

What an evening

Couldn't get out to see the sights of the day but the evening made up for it. The usual fireworks display delighted the crowds which were stretched from the East beach to Factory Creek, of course the beach from Ontario St West to the Creek were shut off to the public but the West Beach from the harbour wall to the bottom of Ontario was packed with families just out roast a few wienies and sit in deck chairs and watch the skies. A tribute to common sense and family fun. Hilton Adams, of Cobourg, and his family picked out their spot at the bottom of Ontario.


How's this for family fun? and who said the West Beach should be for solitude!

Happy Canada Day - hope it doesn't rain!

Happy 142 Canada.

I'm unleashing the right wing opinion dogs on this one, a comment in the TO Star by Sid Ryan about striking workers and the tendency for employers to bash them into the ground, for as the 649 man says, "I can"

Monday evening Council was faced with an interesting situation over heritage windows. Gary Sharpe, the owner of 4,6,8 King St applied for a heritage permit to replace the 2nd storey windows. LACAC took a look and decided that in order to confirm to Town guidelines (in place since the early 90s) the windows should be repaired not replaced. Mr Sharpe disagreed because he wants to refit with vinyl windows. LACAC stuck to its guns and the application went to Council on Monday. Mr Sharpe, a very popular local businessman was present to see the coordinator of planning present a motion rejecting the application that did not get a seconder - a very unusual situation. Obviously the rest of Council was determined to support Mr Sharp and showed it by not supporting the motion. The Mayor determined that this motion and recommendation from LACAC could not remain in limbo and asked for another motion to dispose of the application. Councillor Stan Frost made a motion that was, by design?, a clever motion that the other councillors failed to understand - they after all only wanted to give Mr Sharpe his windows. SF's motion read"That the replacement windows be of material reflecting latest technologies but must be compatible and fit with the heritage surroundings". Up went the hands in support but in order to comply surely the replacement vinyl must be specially designed to fit the surroundings as opposed to the normal replacement windows. A Machiavellian response.
The situation gets murkier as during the debate Mr Sharpe said that he wanted to fit the same kind of window shown on the right (see pic above). These were fitted two years ago with the approval of LACAC. When the BR investigated the situation the conclusion was that the LACAC folks of two years ago were not the same as today - they had lower standards! So how do we achieve consistency? We have to find a way.

We may have to stop following George across Canada as he might get too famous. Another email in this morning from Connie in Moosonee. She says she is looking forward to meeting him. All George wants to do is ride his bike not do interviews. Ah the power of the Internet!

A statement from the former MP of NorthumberlandQuinteWest, Paul Macklin has crossed the wire wherein he has ruled out another crack at the nomination. Throwing the race wide open expect aspirants to be blitzing the riding for support in an election that may or may not come in the Fall. Names being bandied around as horses in the race: local Cobourg businesswoman Kim Rudd, Andrew McFadden from the riding centre and perhaps Christine Herrington from Brighton.

It is Wednesday the 1st today Blogspot is fooling around with the date on the entries.

Went to Council last night to see what they did with the CC

The resolution to approve the Community Centre was on the fast track - as soon as the resolution was read the Mayor barked out, "All those in favour?" hands shot up and it was done - five seconds!

The bike and rider have been on the trail six days now and are approaching Cochrane.
email from George:
"Anyway, things here are going reasonably well. Took the train to Longlac, - along with 40 passengers from England, who had never been to Canada. Their only complaints were that the cabins were too small, and that people weren't dressing properly for dinner in the dining car!

They were aghast that I was getting off in the "wilderness"! I started biking east from Longlac on Hwy 11 last Thursday. Two days of great tailwinds took me to Hearst by Friday PM. I was worried about overdoing it (in terms of what my legs would stand), so I purposely cut back on Saturday and ended at Mattice at noon. Then heavy rain on Saturday AM, to the point where it was too dangerous to continue on the highway:virtually non-existent paved shoulder, and lots of trucks avoiding hilly Lake Superior route).

Had to relent, and hitched a ride with a couple in their truck, who took me to "Kap". Back on the bike again today, and arrived at Smooth Rock Falls (Abitibi mill town, but mill has been shut for a few years now). Should make it easily to Cochrane tomorrow, then on to Moosonsee by rail. I've had no physical problems yet (which is very encouraging), and equipment/clothing is working pretty much as expected. Heavy rain highlighted a leak in the tent, so I'll need to get some seam sealer before Quebec. I'm sending this from the public library in Smooth Rock, which is just about to close. I'll have more time to catch up in Cochrane/Moosonee. Bye for now,

What a difference a week makes in politics, last week the developers for a site on Elgin St were granted a fraction of what they wanted and this week they were back congratulating Council for being flexible and donating enough land for a new soccer pitch adjacent to the existing ones. So what went on this week for such a change of heart? More discussions with the staff and a new report presented to Council that's what. The early report restricted the build of 285 houses to 1/3 singles, 1/3 medium density, 1/3 high density. The new report reduced the number of medium and high density homes and increased the number of single family homes from 75 to 122. One soccer pitch and park equals 47 singles!

Another delegation was the appearance of a very frustrated homeowner. Adrian Worley, who lives at 157 King St W. has the misfortune to be the first to have his road swept, three time a week, by the very loud and slow mechanical Town sweeper. His beef is that the sweeper starts at 5.30am, well before his normal wakeup time. he has done everything right - complained through all the official channels and to the pols - for over a year, but was told by the Director of Works, "The Town is exempt from the noise bylaw!" Well he came to Council to say enough is enough and he is mad about the runaround. So what happened? His complaints were sent off to the Director of Works for a report.

OK found some time

Michael Jackson - tragic but inevitable, ironic that his estate will make piles of money and a cottage industry will spring up fighting over it
The PC's have elected Tim Hudack - another urban rube for the snotty liberals to try to patronise.
The talk shows in Toronto will have found their Messiah by tonight - reports that John Tory may run for Mayor has orgasmic quivers all over it for these guys.
A new Doctor in Town - it will be interesting to see just how fast her book fills up as she signs up the "orphans". With the Port Hope Health Centre 50% under subscribed it looks as though there might not be as many "orphans" as the experts predicted.
Dare to dream - another airy-fairy exercise of the "chattering classes" will take place, but only if we can get a grant for it! Council has decided to let the citizens play at being community builders by asking for those interested in playing in the sandbox to help design something on someone elses's land. A "design charrette" will held led by a hand-picked consultant who will be paid $10,000 to hold a session where people come in and tell someone else just what they (the chattering classes) think should be built on the old Tannery Lands. Interesting, plan away but this land is the most polluted environmental toxic waste dump in the town. The site which has had the contents of the chrome tanks, used in stripping hides and fish, routinely dumped on the ground for many years, before the practise was outlawed in Ontario. Just what mix of chemicals lies underneath is unknown but plan away - just another waste of public money.

The first missed deadline

Had a busy day yesterday admiring eleven fine gardens, plenty of work went into this years participants in the "Big Sisters, Big Brothers" garden tour. All the gardens were in the Brighton/Salem area and just goes to prove that Cobourg and Port Hope don't have the exclusive green thumbs. I couldn't resist this setup - Alex Colville times four!

More copy later in the day, have to help move seaweed this morning.

A couple of pics of Scottish guys

The Highland games came to Town today and here are a couple of early pics of the parade. The first one is "The Scots are coming!"







The second would be titled, "The big guys are always at the back!"

Another look at the figures

Prompted by a comment to a recent post, signed by a person, who says he will never reveal his name, - "born and raised here" the financials for the new Community Centre were revisited. Interesting stuff to a CPA but tough slogging for the rest of us. With Disraeli's quote, "Damned statistics etc..." in mind a couple of charts were analysed. using the consultants figures the estimated first year operating costs for the complex show as $667.443. That is a complete and additional cost to the existing costs for the operation of the existing arenas. Revenues for ice time are shown as $525K but no figures for the loss of revenue from the loss of the Memorial Arena ice or the reduced ice time in Pad 2. So you need that figure for an overall impact. Where the report gets murky is on the Non-Arena estimates.
The chart on the right side is taken from the report and shows Programme Space revenue, but where is the revenue from the Soccer Club paying for its change rooms, where is the rental from the Bowling Club to pay for its clubroom and kitchen? Where is the revenue from the storage space needed by all the different groups? All of these questions would bring in extra revenue, if applied, but right now look like gifts to the clubs from the Town.

But more disturbing is the question of the YMCA's involvement. Cobourg has no recreation department and has paid the Y to assume an informal role in this. Consequently there is a deficiency in recreational opportunities because citizens have expressed displeasure at the rates charged by the Y (This was even mentioned by a questioner at the last public meeting) - so before all the Y fans jump all over the writer for mentioning this it is a common perception being repeated here. So the Y has offered to joint venture the operation. They would operate the 'non-ice' side of the complex, and thereby reduce the Town's operating cost . In table 8.5 of the report found on page 30 there is a chart illustrating how they intend to reduce the Town's cost. Showing a list of Y expenses totalling $504,961 to run the complex if they joint ventured. In the same column the Town's expenses were shown as $215,947.98. A lot lower than the Town's cost of $667K.
But the unknown here is how would the Y spend half a million dollars of its money to run the joint and still allow the residents of Cobourg to access the facility without paying the normal Y fees? Because the way it looks to the BR that if the Y comes in they get a new building for half a million per annum and still get to charge the same fees. Please correct me if we are wrong.
So the conclusion to us folks here is that a much more thorough analysis needs to be done asking why rental income is lower than possible, why the overall impact of the transfer of ice rental revenue is not explained and the impact of ticket prices to the complex if the Y comes in. We are sure that these questions and more will be answered before the vote on July 21, but only if people ask.