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To the Town Crier:
I was extremely
pleased to see the request for people's ideas about "It's time for two
feuding towns to make peace" in your latest edition. As an opinionated
person who lives in Cobourg I relish the chance to make suggestions on
such an important topic. Perhaps I am different from people in Cobourg
in that I sympathize with every single injustice that Port Hopers perceive
have been heaped upon them. Without itemizing any of them I would like
to say that it takes big people to move on and the editorialists of the
"Crier" have to be congratulated in making the first start.
As a person who has been involved in public life for over twenty years I think that what I may suggest is based in the "real politik" of Northumberland County. And I don't think that the people of the two towns are particularly different.
So here goes: Given that the Provincial government has changed, for the foreseeable future, the basis of municipal funding for capital projects the people who say municipal amalgamations are inevitable are correct. Let me explain: in prior years whenever a community wished to build a road, sewage treatment plant or any other large infrastructure the Province used to subsidise heavily (roads up to 95%). This has now changed and municipalities now have to raise the full cost of such projects themselves. The only mechanism to do this is by raising money by selling debentures in the money markets. The collateral to back these loans is the ability to tax. More people to tax more money can be raised. So small municipalities will be forced to become bigger so that they can build or rebuild themselves.
Therein lies the challenge: how do take advantage of a bad situation? How do small communities remain communities and maintain "small town" quality of life? I think it can be done! First off, disregard all talk of municipal cooperation about sharing services….it will not work. Petty municipal jealousies will ensure that it won't. There have been many recent examples of this: The Diamond Triangle being the best example. What you need is a larger municipality.
Aha you say how can you remain "small town if you do that? Not easily I say. Everybody has to realise that maintaining and developing communities is a fluid and time-consuming thing. Fluid because communities are not based on existing municipal boundaries and time consuming because building and maintaining communities is not easy, or cheap. It can be done and this is my plan. First you have to understand that a community is not a political entity. It is a collection of individuals who happen to live in contiguous neighbourhoods. So the administrative structure is different from the social structure; parallel universes so to speak.
Establish the area that will become the most efficient in delivering municipal services to the citizens. · Decide what services should be centralised and then design a delivery service and the governance of the area. The big problem here is how do you connect the voters to the governors. How do you ensure that the governors are not removed from the voters? You can do two things: one is to maintain the ratio of one councillor for every 2,000 voters (the current average in Port Hope/Cobourg), which would lead to a large governing body or you could establish a councillor for every 5,000/7,500/10,000 voters and adopt a ward system based on actual neighbourhoods and communities (not established boundaries) and create local ward committees (composed of elected citizens or volunteers).
The important thing to do in the latter case is not adopt it unless you are willing to do two things: cede meaningful local planning power to the locals and fund the local committee activity and a programme of community development to develop full community participation, (that does not mean you pay members). So what have you really done here that is different from the existing system? Not much except to change the culture of governing. Bringing power back to the neighbourhoods. A community within communities. This structure will ensure that local differences can be respected, Port Hope will be able to remain the same Port Hope we all know and Cobourg can do what it wants. The key will be an official plan that delineates planning powers and defines central functions.
The main thing to remember is that we are not giving in to County government we are redefining our system of governments to reflect neighbourhoods and communities. In other words we have to destroy and rebuild. Which brings me back to the point of your editorial, which was not stated (because it did not have to be) ….. attitudes must change. Minds must open and the future must not be based on the past. With the recognizable creativity amongst us we can have the best of all worlds: "small is beautiful" and "administrative efficiency".
All we have to do is work at it, building a new community, and developing the old ones within will be the key to stopping the fighting.
Ben Burd
21 University
Ave E
Cobourg
A solution to the feud