Category: Opinions

County Releases Strategic Plan for 2023-2027

John Draper

I did not know the County had a strategic plan nor was I aware that they were producing a new one.  But there is a 2019 – 2023 Strategic Plan on their web site as well as the new one. The document is 28 pages with about half devoted to describing the county and the second half to text describing goals. The goals are divided into 5 “pillars” or categories and although Key Performance Indicators are promised, it will be early 2024 before we know what they are and see progress reports using them. There are no specific cost goals or even goals with numbers  – I would use the term “Motherhood” to describe the goals.  (That is, feel good goals as… Read complete articleCounty Releases Strategic Plan for 2023-2027

Getting News in Cobourg

John Draper

Or should it be “Getting News in the 21st century”? For a century or so, the way to get news was from a daily newspaper but newspapers are gradually going out of favour and instead there are multiple online sources. But it seems people are lazy and want all their news to come from one source – just like a newspaper was expected to have all the news. Some rely on Facebook or Google to collect all their news on one page – more on that below – and others rely on a portal like Yahoo news. But the only sure way is to look at multiple on-line sources: multiple sites and multiple newsletters. In this post, I will review… Read complete articleGetting News in Cobourg

Predictions for 2023 – Opinion

John Draper

At this time of year, I like to look ahead and try to predict what will happen in the new year.  But first let’s see how I did last year. In 2021 I had four categories: Politics, Covid-19, Town and the Economy.  In Politics I predicted the Provincial election result but missed by predicting Emily Chorley would run again. I was right that the Cultural Plan would be ignored.  With Covid-19, I was mostly right but I thought we would still be mandated to wear masks indoors.  For Town activities, I was mostly right although I thought that the Province would have made a decision on Brookside by now.  I correctly predicted no action on Sidbrook, the Tannery property, the Park… Read complete articlePredictions for 2023 – Opinion

Predictions for 2022 – opinion

John Draper

Last year at around this time, I gave my opinion on what might happen in 2021 – I got more than half right – see report in Resources below.  With both a Provincial and Council election scheduled, one major issue for 2022 will be politics.  The other big issue will be the economy: with inflation getting significant, interest rates will go up and therefore the housing market will cool or possibly tank.  Covid-19 will not go away but will become just one of the things we cope with – it’s unlikely that there will be any lockdown or major restrictions although people will remain cautious.  All this means that local issues will get most of our attention.  Here are my… Read complete articlePredictions for 2022 – opinion

Predictions for 2021 – Opinion

John Draper

Predictions by their nature are not facts – they are really opinions.  I made no predictions this time last year for 2020 and the predictions for 2019 posted a year earlier got about 8 right out of 12.  So take the predictions below with a grain of salt – except for death and taxes, the future is never certain. To predict what’s going to happen, the only facts you can rely on are what has happened up till now. So based on what I’ve seen in 2020, I think that in 2021 we can expect: Covid-19 Cobourg will go back to Yellow zone January 23 Most people in Cobourg will be able to get a vaccine shot by July. Most… Read complete articlePredictions for 2021 – Opinion

When Will this End – Opinion

John Draper

A year or so ago, we had some interesting posts by Grahame Woods which were “opinion” and not reporting of news, and this post is in that category – not a neutral reporting of facts but instead an opinion on when the pandemic will end.  In following the news and participating in volunteer activities, I have come to some considered opinions about this new world we find ourselves in.  I think the big unanswered question is – When will it end?  No one can be sure of anything in the future let alone predicting the end of a pandemic but we don’t so much need to know when the pandemic will end, but instead when will we get back to “normal”? … Read complete articleWhen Will this End – Opinion