Rocks and Senses a new contemplative park area?

The wind was taken out of the sails of the supporters of the status quo in Victoria Park last night by a pre-emptive strike in the form of a $20,000 makeover of picnic area A, the East end of the park.
This area of the park is a source of woe to the residents of the area as it is perceived to be overcrowded and overused. Tales of picnic tables being earmarked at 7am, large tents being erected for shade and general complaints of noise and cooking smells were also raised. Well, Council has decided to try to and shut the residents up by effectively banning all people from the picnic area by converting the area to a passive park filled with "low-maintenance bushes and shrubs". Town staff quoted the move "as a completion of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan". This is untrue as the Plan's landscaping plan shows nothing of the sort of radical gardening that will take place. Even the workplan is silent on this move. However CAO, Stephen Peacock, when questioned about the change in plan and policy said, "Although the plan may not show the changes Council has the power to implement changes to it"
The end result is that the Town has shifted picnic patterns from the East end to the hitherto underutilised West side of the park. But in adopting other changes, that of chaining down picnic tables and only allowing two tables to be coupled together and forcing large groups to apply for "picnic permits" in order to book tables, both enforcement nightmares and cultural clashes are inevitable.
But will the residents, and obviously Council, be happy with the proposed changes. One resident, Bill Thompson of Church St, (seen in pic) wasn't as he questioned the Deputy Chief of police about the "No tolerance" policy that will adopted in the area of parking and other violations in the area. He was not mollified by the official answers and remained sceptical and agreed to pursue his claims of the police not being responsive last year. Other taxpayers questioned the definition of "groups" and wondered how large families will fit into this grouping. Deb O'Connor whilst telling Council that they should be spending more on garbage containers worried about the "over-regulation" of the park by the institution of so many rules. "Let's not forget that people go to the park to have fun!"
Another debate sprung up about the definition and use of "shelters". These shade creating devices will be permitted only if they are not sealed devices, for as the law-enforcement people put it, "We must be able to have a clear line of sight in the area, for emergency situations." and also "to stop the hiding of alcohol and small children."
All in all Council and staff will now be able to claim that they have started on a process of managing the area, whether they will be successful is debatable and yet to be proved but the shifting of picnickers away from the East of the park to the West of park and instituting restrictive picnic table rules is a dubious piece of social engineering designed to keep the Bay St residents happy. But as the parking rules on Paul Currelly Way haven't changed much there will still be traffic problems. And as we have seen in the past because towing and ticketing rules can be applied arbitrarily and subject to political pressure, a consistent policy may be hard to apply.
What was not mentioned was the impact of large festivals on the recreational choices for Cobourg. For as we know when the Waterfront festival and to a smaller extent RibFest come to Town without the East end of the park being available we now have handed over the park to non-picnickers; is this fair and how will the Town handle it?

The first of many speculations

A deep throaty kind of guy phoned me last night to explain some recent moves in Port Hope. The political front is now in the jockeying stage, everyone trying to line up at the start line for November's municipal election. Anyway the key to the conspiracy theory is Linda Thompson, the current Mayor. She has announced that she will run but the gnashing of teeth and the blowing of brains swirls around the position of Deputy Mayor. In Port Hope, unlike other Towns the position is declared after the election by a vote of sitting Councillors. The current line up for the position depends on the re-election of former mayor - Rick Austin - to the Council. Rick who is feeling some financial pain after bailing out his disgraced son, now slugs bread at the No-Frills store in Cobourg. His long expected appointment to the local JP's job evaporated at his son's trial. Now he wants back in, even if only for some spending money. If he gets back in LT will be pushing for her old buddie, RA, to be DM. The conspiracy gets deeper as LT's other big buddy - Rick Norlock - will be placing her in the PC candidates slot, he controls the local executive board, in the next provincial election. If she wins, good ole boy Rick returns as Mayor. In the meantime we have the sight of Jeff "I want my own police dept" Lees frothing at the mouth at the prospect of RA coming back on Council and taking his beloved DM's job. This is driving him to find political allies very quickly. And at the same time we have former Councillor and perennial candidate John Floyd asking all his buds in his facebook page, "How about John Floyd for Mayor?"

Now if only Cobourg could be so hot and heavy.

Oooops

Just mistakenly rejected todays comments, clicked to reject one and all were tagged. So please resubmit, if you can. The important one was a reminder about the Meeting at Town Hall about the beach and its use in the summertime - tomorrow at five pm

Is Area "C" dead?

Area "C" is the land to the east of Town from Brook Rd to Workman Rd which has been part of Cobourg's modern expansion plans. The Secondary Plan that outlines this expansion calls for 16,000 people to live in the area and would effectively double the size of the Town if implemented.

In a motion before Council tomorrow evening the Council will adopt a recommendation from the Planning Advisory Committee to adopt the the County's Growth Management Study - "Places to Grow". This report recommends that Cobourg only expand by 3400 people, 1100 jobs and use 88 hectares of greenfields in the next thirty years. Despite the impediments of expansion - a servicing cost of $7.1 million, that will be paid by developers, and the slow growth of the Town a couple of developers are still trying to make it work. The land on the North side of King is owned by Schickendanz, a local builder of homes and other development lots are being held by speculators. Even the latest approved subdivisions in the North end of the area are rumoured to be for sale at any time. So now the developers have doubts about expansion. With the PAC's motion, which will be incorporated into the new Official Plan perhaps sane taxpayers can at last put the boots to this meglomaniacal plan. The cost of maintenance for the new area, if it was ever built would bankrupt us.

Haiti

OK it's been three days now and when is the water going to get to the masses? With all of the media and the high priced planning available why have we not seen pics of water distribution? People will die if not watered within three days, so where is it?

Reports of aid blockages at the airport and harbour do not feed one person. Where is the actual relief on the ground? Why haven't we used helicopters to drop aid into inaccessible areas. If we can get tons of stuff with congested air traffic to sit at the airport, why can't we get choppers into the area. As an armchair quarterback it seems pretty easy to me - fly a couple of squadrons from the US, island hop and get them in there.

Just a couple of thoughts from a frustrated person fedup with the media pumping out pics of the dead and dying. And just to add fuel to the fire and add a bit of politics how come there are unsubstantiated reports of SAR techs being bumped off the first plane out of Trenton to make space for journos?

Taking to the streets

Local activists have mobilised. In an email received today, which states:

Some of us are planning a quick rally in front of Rick Norlock's office Jan. 23, and those who wish will then car-pool to Peterborough for their rally. Since it's at 1:00PM, I guess we'll leave at 12:10, and gather around 11:45.

An open invitation has been extended to all. Please address all enquiries to Wilf Day And as well as the ruling party facing opposition the Facebook group Canadians against proroguing Parliament has now grown to 185,156. Not quite an Iranian revolution yet but respectable.

Update - Saturday 16th, it now seems that the Greens are being mobilised as well, to join the demo at Norlock's office. Party members received an email from the local green to join those already committed. Good for them but sadly will only make the first commenter in a previous thread happy to see one of his two observations come true:

John Draper said...
How many of the protestors will be die-hard NDP and Liberal supporters who would never vote conservative anyway? My informal survey says that most people simply don't care.

It appears that plenty of people care 195,124 people have joined the Facebook protest already!

Is the County going to buff up Hector McMillan?

Will the move to hire a project manager for the 2nd bridge project in C'ford help Hector McMillan in his reelection and if it does why should the rest of the County have to pay for it? Mayor Hec' admits that the proposal to fix the bridge has run into difficulties. He says that the steering committee is not informed, the residents are not informed and the whole project needs better management. Wasn't this project being noisily touted by King Hec' as the only thing to do when he wanted to bulldoze several houses and build a new road to service the bridge? Didn't the Council vote for Hec's project? So who mismanaged it - yep you guessed King Hec'.
But the County rides to the rescue. In a closed meeting, which could be called illegal by some, the County suddenly agreed to hire a project manager to supervise communications and coordinate the engineering studies fore the project. Now who will claim the credit, especailly in an election year when his one opponent to date, an experienced politician moving from Port Hope to C'ford - Bob Fudge - says the bridge will be a campaign issue.
Hey I don't mind Hec' playing politics but when Cobourg's taxpayers will be paying 23% of the PM's wages it's a bit too much.

A couple of questions

As we get into the nuts and bolts of the Community Centre design/build a couple of questions pop up for me. One is the amount of time that the high-priced consultant will spending on the job. His CV, if I remember, gives his full time occupation as a position at Queens University and Partner in the Fundraising Company. That means he really will not be available to give good effort until school is out in April. The other is the methodolgy being adopted here. According to the timeline reported by NNews "The campaign plan breaks down into four phases and Phase 1 has just begun, inviting major donors to donate over $100,000. After May, those who want to donate $50,000 or more will be invited to give. In September, the committee will be looking for donors at the $10,000 level, before opening up the campaign to everyone in the community. Phase 4 begins in April, 2011, and that will be when the campaign ends and volunteers focus on collecting the donations and getting the facility built on time."
So a list has been made up and mailed to all potential donors assessed by the committee as being able to donate $100,000. Lots of luck on that one, can anyone think ofhand just how many companies/businesses/individuals are willing to pony up a 100K? Then anybody approached after May will be thinking "gee you guys think that I am only worth 50K, I'll just keep that extra back in my pocket" A peculiar concept - 'means testing' in reverse! So if at the end of the year you get an invite for money just remember the committee is only doing it because they think you have less money than the people being asked earlier in the year. A very dangerous way of raising money. If the committee thinks you have money you will be asked and if they don't know or just guess wrongly then you will probably be asked as an afterthought.

A guest post

Grahame Woods

If you shop at Cobourg’s Metro supermarket, you might have noticed how little the management of the store cares for the well-being of its staff. You might recall how, under its previous A&P ownership, the store had an enormous, expensive, and ill-conceived facelift, with no consideration given to the cashiers and staff working at the service desk adjacent to the exit at the west end of the building. Now, in the throes of a bitter winter, those employees, bundled up and chilled to the core, have to withstand the biting winds each time a customer leaves the store. In the redesign no thought was given to this concern. All management has to do is look at the Staples store to the east to see how to fix the problem. One cashier told me she’s afraid to complain out of fear of losing her job. This in Cobourg in 2010? It’s shameful.

Another prorogue mention

Pundits are divided about the internet movement concerning the proroguing of Parliament. There is a group called "Canadians against proroguing of Parliament". This group started off as two and then merged. The online membership, as of now - 7.41am Tuesday - is 165,283. This number has now surpassed the number of Canadians who signed up online to demonstrate against the Coalition, last year. Opinion is mixed about the efficacy and influence of this group. A better demonstration will be the rallies planned for January 23rd. There are rallies planned for Peterborough, Belleville and Oshawa. Check out the details here. The Peterborough details are here, this group has 144 members already.

Now you know where to vent you should be there, a gathering of people is far more impressive than just writing letters to the ed!