With many businesses closed, many others getting less income and a lot of people losing their jobs, at least temporarily, the Town is planning to provide relief of various kinds. Although the Provincial and Federal Governments are planning to provide relief, it may come later than needed and may not be sufficient in many cases so the Town is wanting to help out. This will include free transit, free parking, delayed payment of taxes and generally being sensitive to the difficult circumstances many residents will find themselves in. Some of the problem is caused by the fact that the public cannot enter Victoria Hall but it’s not just that. Below is a list of what’s being planned and the rationale. A special Council meeting at about 3:30 pm on Monday will be asked to formally approve these measures although some are already in place.
Transit Service
- Benefit: Transit service will be provided at no charge until May 1, 2020 and riders will only use the rear door for entry and exit.
Rationale: Helps people get to where they need to go; avoids the need to buy transit passes with Town Hall closed; allows for social distancing between driver and passengers - Discontinuance: Extended hours for accessible transit to be eliminated until May 1, 2020.
Rationale: There is no ridership during these additional hours and there is a need for our transit contractor to continue to provide sufficient drivers to maintain the system.
Parking
- Benefit: Free parking at all municipal lots and at all municipal meters until May 1, 2020.
Rationale: Removes the need to buy parking passes and it eliminates the need to remove coin from meters when the municipality is operating at a reduced level of staffing
Taxes
- Benefit: A waiver of all penalties and interest charges on unpaid property taxes which would normally have been applied on April 1, 2020 and May 1, 2020
Rationale: Employment insurance benefits may arrive later than desired so this gives time to pay. Also “many businesses have been forced to close or at the very least seen a significant reduction in revenue making it very difficult for them to pay their rent or property taxes”. This will “allow these property owners to not be penalized while the businesses are experiencing these hardships.” - Benefit: Upon request, payments on pre-authorized payment plans may be delayed.
Rationale: Not everyone will need to defer payments hence the recommendation to base deferrals on requests.
The financial impact to the Town will include loss of transit and parking revenues (no estimated amount) plus an expected $70K loss due to waiving penalties. Cash flow will not be a problem.
Links
Report from Interim CAO Ian Davey
Print Article:
What is the status of permit parking in Cobourg at this time. Your website still says to end May 1st but your financial dept says it still is free at this time.
This is a news report dated 22 March and gives the status as of this date. For the latest on restrictions and benefits, go to the special Covid-19 page here.
For those that are interested…dial up: ” Bill Gates Virus Warning in 2015″ on your computer.
Too bad our governments worldwide did not listen and act on the wisdom of this genius.
Exactly, and for 15 years the Liberal govt of Ontario failed to replenish the grossly depleted supplies held in reserve for just such an event that is happening right now.
“To further contain the spread of COVID-19, the Ontario Government will order the mandatory closure of all non-essential workplaces effective as of Tuesday, March 24th at 11:59 p.m. This closure will be in effect for 14 days with the possibility of extending this order as the situation evolves.”
LCBO and weed stores stay open.
Enjoy!
I can’t imagine what a whole province would look like going cold turkey?🍷🥃🍺
At this afternoon’s Council meeting, there was a lot of discussion about the Greenwood Coalition. In the interests of full disclosure and without intending in any way to question her integrity, does Councillor Beatty’s relationship with them place her in a conflict of interest and should she recuse herself?
Councillor Nicole Beatty has posted on this site before and perhaps she can provide you a direct response to your question. I hope she will in the interest of transparency. On her company web site she identifies Greenwood Coalition as a client. It is not clear whether the organization is a past or current client.
Thank you Canuck Patriot and MiriamM for your comments. I am always happy to clarify questions especially when it comes to keeping my integrity and intention in good standing. Correct, Green Wood Coalition is a past client of mine. I do not currently work or volunteer for Green Wood. I do not sit on their Board. Since becoming a Cobourg Councillor I do not pursue work with local charities that I anticipate would comprise my role as Councillor. If so, I would recuse myself. For example, during the 2019 community grant process I recused myself from voting on grants in relation to organizations that I was in the process of transitioning out (as a volunteer Board member). I would also like to note that I have sought advice from the Integrity Commissioner on this topic in the past and I have followed the advice given to me. For those wanting to know, I only have one PAID nonprofit project in Northumberland. It is a small contract with a women’s resource centre. It is funded by the province – there is no municipal funding attached to it. I travel out of the community and work remotely for the majority of my profession. I made this decision to pivot my business when I was elected to office. There was a lot of conversation yesterday during Council about Green Wood Coalition and the NETWORK of outreach agencies that are working collectively to response to the homelessness crisis in our community. My motion yesterday aimed to build capacity around the efforts being led by Transition House. Yesterday’s motion was in reference to the item from a February 9th budget meeting that dealt with a drop-in outreach program led by Green Wood in partnership with two others. It is important to note that that motion passed on February 9th also included a $6,000 charitable donation from an anonymous donor. The $6,000 from Council will go to support a COLLECTIVE of local agencies who are working together as they navigate the collision of two public health crisis. It is well known that I’m heavily involved in this community – as all of Council is – it’s the reason why I campaigned: community leadership. A quick scroll through my social media (on Facebook my page is Cobourg Councillor Nicole Beatty) you will see that I share many of the good work being done by the community and social sector in Cobourg. If anyone has any further questions I’m happy to answer them. Kindly call me on 905.269.5637. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
Nicole Beatty
Is this an option to support our local small business owners, and if so how can it be operationalized across our community: https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/covid-open-letter-freshbooks.
How about not requiring garbage tags as we are now out.
What is the town doing to prevent outsiders from crowding our beach as seen in many other places?
Its snowing out
Outsiders 😂
The highway is empty
https://511on.ca/map/Cctv/603019-0-0–1
Outsiders? You mean people from the West End?
The closures and proposed tax deferrals are welcome moves and will benefit many but they will significantly impact town revenues. Are there plans to compensate by curtailing unnecessary town expenditures? Are towns even allowed to run a deficit?
Lets hope the Town cuts back on some of those unnecessary expenses , window dressing
and recreation projects this year to recover rather than increase our Taxes next yr
And no $$$ for climate change initiatives.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-pandemic-leading-to-huge-drop-in-air-pollution
Interesting stats.
Photos are of China, one of the largest & worst polluters in the world.
It’s about NO2, not CO2 which causes the climate changes. The drop in pollution is good heralthwise, but to continue such wonderfulness, there will be hundreds of millions unemployed and many products will no longer be available. Learn to sew our clothes, to make our own soap, etc. ie mass deprivation,
For the last decade our governments gambled on the wrong threat to humankind. The climate change emergency was a hoax. COVID 19 will dramatically change how we separate fact from fiction and to repatriate goods and services from foreign sources that threaten our sovereignty.
The fact that most of our prescibed drugs are manufactured in China is alarming. The Big Pharma CEOs should all be fired and even jailed for putting greed, profit and bonuses ahead of the public good.
Oooooh, look at all the Tory upvotes.
How do we request tax deferral (while on auto payment plan) if the town hall is closed?
There are staff still at Town Hall working, I reached the Finance Dept by phone last week at 905-372-8944. Not sure if this has changed as of March 23. Access inside the building by the public is not possible at this time.
Are Town employees, police and fire excluded, being laid off like employees in just about every business or are they self-isolating with full pay? Many people I know are having to apply for EI or use up whatever savings they may still have. What about provincial public servants and teachers? My heart and prayers go out to all who have been directly affected either healthwise or financially.
Out of all this are you actually bashing the front line workers collecting a pay check while they are scrambling for masks and daycare alternatives to protect themselves and their families?
No I’m not. Suggest you re-read my comments.
I’m not talking about our health care workers, EMS, police or fire. And please don’t try to justify all other municipal and provincial government workers as being front line in this time of crisis.
All I’m saying is there should be no class difference based on being a public or private sector employee. People will not put up with a double standard in times like these.
Great. It never occured to me there could be a double standard in this instance.Btw..i never tried to justify anything
I hear what you are saying I think, but do we want to lay-off our municipal employees who oversee our drinking water/ wastewater plants and those who look after our electrical system?
Not those who provide essential services that our lives depend upon.
Non essential employees, ok understand now
What definition is the Town using when they say, essential employees. Paramedics in Ontario are not an essential service.
Generally the Town, would consider all municipal employees non essential during contract negotiations, except for fire and police.
Paramedics work for the County
No what they asked I believe is if Municipal and None essential public sector staff that are at home like the rest of us are now off the Pay roll ???
Use spell check and some periods
“Use spell check and some periods”
Don’t be throwing stones, leave it up to Grammar Cop.
Remember this from March 11th?
Is “Informed” a pseudonym used by Johanne? Very similar writing styles.
Your post is difficult to understand Informed.
• is your above post to have 4 or 5 sentences?
• if it has 5 sentences you are missing a word space after the first period
• if it should have 4 sentences, the first period should be a comma with a word space after it
• in either case, the letter “i” should be capitalized and have an apostrophe between it and the letter “m” (as in I’m)
• dont needs an apostrophe to make it don’t (as in do not)
• I think there might be an extra word (“Paid”?) in the second to last sentence.
• not sure what that particular sentence means or implies, that I might be an overpaid Librarian or that an overpaid Librarian could do the job?
• “Your right” should be You’re right (as in You are right). Or, did you mean your right, the opposite of your left? If that is the case, then I really don’t understand that sentence or what you are trying to say.😉
I guess i was rong🙂Your wright. I will do better.I feel like I’ve been spanked.lol
See a lot of grammar mistakes etc but I find using a phone is a pain in the backside as the boxes are too small and i have small fingers. Also the phone tries to correct words which sometimes are wrong so you have to watch for that. If you are smart you would able to read most messages anyway. Also remember that a lot of people in this country were not brought up to speak and spell English. I was a typist that could type at 60 wpm but I am really slow on these phones. One eg above typed in originally wpm and it was automatically changed to women.
It’s even worse if you have fat fingers like some of us.
I guess self-isolation is working and you have found your place as “grammar police”, apart from that, you may be digging too deep into your isolation chores.
Don’t force your readers to mentally edit what you write – e.g. change “your” to “you’re” – in order for it to make sense.
Use basic punctuation, at least, so the readers don’t have to mentally add it to make what you’re (sic) trying to say understandable.
Please, and thank you.
Yes, and stop pressing “enter” at the end of every line. It results in really stoopid formatting.