At the Council meeting on Monday and at the Budget meeting on Tuesday, Council were briefed on a proposal by Director of Public Works Laurie Wills to conduct a trial of a possible Micro-Transit system in Cobourg.  It would use full–size buses for the trial since the Town already owns these but if successful, new buses would be smaller and would possibly use hybrid technology.  The idea is that instead of a fixed route, buses would be effectively on-call with routes determined by software and based on demand. The advantages of a micro-transit systems are many: lower cost per rider, pickup locations closer to home, improved accessibility, far less wait times, faster and more direct trips, higher vehicle utilization, and… Read complete articleTown Considering Trial of Micro-Transit

The Monday Committee of the Whole Council meeting was busy and productive. Reported earlier were the VanDyk homes project, the Q3 Budget Variance report and the Second Street parking lot but several other topics were discussed and approved.  As usual, they will have to be ratified at the regular Council meeting on December 14. Additional items included Indigenous Land Acknowledgement, a new Advisory Committee, approval of a development on Nickerson Drive, an increase in Planning fees and looking into different kinds of buses.  The meeting started with a presentation by Jack Gibbons on the climate crisis and a request to Council for support of his idea.  There were also a number of other motions passed – more below.  It was… Read complete articleBusy Council Meeting

There are two reasons to be disappointed with Tuesday’s budget session.  First, most departments asked for a whole lot more money than the Deputy Mayor’s target of an increase of just 0 to 1% and secondly, most of the presentations were about what had been achieved instead of how they were keeping their budget under control.  That is, they talked about why their department is important and presumably deserves a whole lot of money. Numbers were provided to Council that detailed what the money would be spent on but only a few numbers were included in presentations that could be downloaded by the public.  I guess it’s unrealistic to expect draft budgets to be made available online since they are more… Read complete articleBudget Meeting Disappointment

On Monday November 30, a public meeting was held to explain the re-zoning and re-purposing of the Woodlawn Inn as a drug and alcohol addiction re-habilitation Centre.  Ryan Guetter of Weston Consulting explained that Canadian Centre for Addictions is the new owner of the property and sees a need for their services in Cobourg.  They currently own and operate a similar facility in Port Hope.  But before the meeting got very far, three Councillors declared a conflict and dropped out of the meeting leaving a bare quorum of four.  Both Brian Darling and Emily Chorley said they owned properties within 120 metres and Aaron Burchat has done work at the related Port Hope facility.  Ryan made a presentation with details… Read complete articleWoodlawn Re-Purposing Explained

At the next Committee of the Whole Council meeting on December 7, Treasurer Ian Davey will present a report on operating budget performance up to the end of the third quarter – September 30.  Since the budget is annual with no quarterly breakdown, Ian presents performance in terms of percent of the budget remaining.  If there were no seasonal factors, then the remaining budgets for both revenue and expenditures should be 25%.  There are of course seasonal factors so this measure is not much use.  Instead, Ian also provides last year’s report at the same point.  According to my analysis, there is a shortfall in revenue compared to 2019 of approx. $3.5M.  But expenditures have been reduced and Ian’s numbers… Read complete articleThird Quarter Budget Update