Observations

Sunday August 15 2003

• A good turnout at a local public meeting
  
• Well the election is really here, or it had better be.
• Another election hint
• So what did you do in the big blackout?
• What's next now that Royal Cobourg has got all the development allocation?
• One in and One out
• The war of words

It's summertime and these folks still want to get in on the action

About 100 people (the Cobourg Star's estimation not mine) came to the Municipal Hall on Wednesday 13th of August. They were there to listen and watch the Council in action as they considered an application from CJC bottling to establish a new well and bottling plant in Vernonville.
In the packed chamber the crowd listened to a highly rehearsed presentation from John Corcoran, the owner and proponent and his well paid support team of a planner, hydrologist and a couple of other experts. All were brought in to prove to the Council that science was on their side. On the other side the citizens who felt affected by the application were ready to speak about how the watertaking will affect them. At the beginning Mayor Finlay laid out the rules and said the meeting might not be over until eleven, it started at eight and Council is only here to listen. And they did. This meeting was a cakewalk compared the next public meeting to be held in Grafton later this month, when Council gets to discuss the Shelter Valley gravel pit.

The Provincial election.
With two of the three major parties having campaign offices in downtown Cobourg there must be something in the air.This missive is being written after the blackout and before 'Oilcan Ernie' bobs and weaves into an election date other than Sept 28 or October 2nd. The tidbit this week is that the NDP scooped up the office space that the Liberals had eyed but did nothing about.

Another election hint
The picture on the right sums it all up as the Tories rush around the Province telling us what wonderful people they are and how much each local MPP can make a difference in our lives, and if he is Tory he must voted back in. The Minister of Transportation, the right-hand guy in the pic, Frank Klees came to town to open a bridge on the 401, the other guys in the photo are Doug Galt, Fred Holloway - Mayor of Hamilton Township, and Bob Spooner - the Deputy Mayor of Cobourg. We must be in an election mode for a Minister of the Crown to make a special visit just to open a bridge that thousands have been using everyday since the blacktop was put on and lines painted. Even the local paper noted the oddity of opening a used bridge and claiming it as a local achievement.
Keeping this up I fully expect to see pics of the Tories giving out welfare checks and claiming it as an electoral accomplishment. Come off it guys programme money is programme money and would be spent no matter who is in power, to claim that Doug Galt had anything to do with a normal roadbuilding job is fatuous. Boast about some real piece of effort not just normal government stuff, the public will get cynical after a couple of goes at this! What I don't understand is how the local pols can trot off to any photo-op and feel useful. Give it up guys you are being used.

Look carefully at the picture
Deputy Mayor Bob Spooner is the fellow on the left, the one with the mayoral chain of office around his neck. The real Mayor was out of town attending a wedding and up pops Bob to take his place. Not wanting to rely on his own charm and presence he wraps the chain around his neck just to make sure everyone knows he's in charge (for three days). Pretentious Bob!

So what did you do during the blackout?
Congratulations to the citizens of the Town in not creating mayhem or chaos. A job well done by the civic authorities and a lot of credit must go the previous Town Engineer, Ken Rumball, who fought mighty hard over the years to get the money to install generators at all of the Town's necessary installations.
My personal log:
4.11 Outside washing the car my wife asked me if I had been fiddling with the hydro, "We don't have any and have you been doing anything?"
4.15 Checked the traffic lights and figured out that the block was off.
4.20 Took the dog to the park, going through 3 lights and not much problem, most people had the idea of a 4way stop.
4.40 Came back from the park and stopped at the William St, University intersection - chaos, nobody here had a bloody clue what to do or was it just the yahoos who thought the side streets were of no consequence. Anyway southbound traffic obviously thought they were the kings of the road entering the intersection at will and three cars at a time.
4.43 Into the University, Division intersection, what a difference, all the good drivers were here. No problem figuring out that only one car at a time could enter the intersection and that's the one on the right.
5.00 Decided to see what was going on at Bruce & Rick's, I was on call for the tow truck that night. Get to the station and entered a world of controlled mayhem. Bruce and a couple of others had set up a generator and tried to get power to the pumps and computers. They ended up sending one power line to the pumps and one to the computers, both needed to work in order to deliver fuel.
6.30 A system was working and gas started to be pumped. By this time word had got around that this station was the only one with fuel. Lines started to appear and never got any shorter. I pumped gas, one car every two minutes and only $30.00 worth paid in cash. The system worked and most people were satisfied.
9.00 Went off to do a service call, came back through Grafton and noticed that the Esso station there had a generator running. Grafton was the height of civilization, both a gas station and the liquor store open!
11.00 Went to bed
1.02am Awoke to the sound of the alarm clock ding, went downstairs to check the windup clock on the wall and shut of the remaining stuff.
Back to normal the next morning.

Now that we don't have any more commercial space to use what's next?
With the RCCL development application sailing through the council chamber at the speed of light what's next. Using the figures given to me by the Town Planner Monday I calculated that in the year 2005 there would be a residual capacity of available commercial space of 21,000. But Council gave away 15,000 of it on Monday night to LinMac so they can build a rumoured Red Lobster and another couple of stores. So we now only have 6,000 square feet left to give away before we start to harm the commercial base (at least that's the theory according to Price Waterhouse, who stand by their figures). A spokesperson for RCCL told an interviewer that it will be a long time before they start to apply for any more space. I would think so, they appear to be having a problem finding tenants announcing that the next three businesses to go in the Strathy St. complex will be a Dollar Store and two fast food chains. Where's the quality retail Mr. Wong?

One in and one out
Councilor Gail DeVeau made official what all observers had concluded months ago, she will not be a candidate in the next election. Still fighting accusations that she has a conflict of interest in her position on the Police Services Board, The Chair is the Executive Director of the organization she works for, she preferred to trumpet her accomplishments. Banning wild animal acts and stopping smoking in public places.

On the other hand at a press conference called outside Victoria Hall on Thursday, Councilor Dean McCaughey stated publicly that he will seek reelection. Flanked by his campaign team, old friends and drinking buddies, he boasted about being a five term councilor (well he is if you count the first three and then a break and this one). Interestingly he had his wife in the picture, she was not at his side perhaps that reflects the rumours of his marital discord, not a good thing to talk about in a campaign. Still if he has patched things up I wish them both well.

The war of words
The Cobourg Daily Star has been running in its Letters to the Ed, page a series of letters about the accomplishments of the local MPP. Doug's supporters have been taking to task a couple of regular letterwriters who have been lambasting the local MPP, and trying to defeat them with words. The latest duel came from a letter written by James Thomas, he of the Chamber of Commerce -President 2000-2, when he tied a couple of local letter writers as mouthpieces for Doug's opponents. Digging deeper this is ironic as JT was tagged as being a member of the palace guard revolt against Doug last year, but was quickly whipped into line only to emerge as Doug's campaign manager presumably because Al (Chainsaw) Hoffman may have been deemed as too abrasive. Now his sense of loyalty is tested as he tries to cow the letterwriting opposition. It hasn't worked as one of the identified writers, Martin Partridge - a rumoured liberal, has fired back. Most interesting but the war won't last the paper has a policy of only one letter of rebuttal per writer, Sad!

Sunday August 3 2003

• What's going on in Port Hope?
• The public reaction to the Policing meetings
• Bring on the election
• A picture tells a thousand words

What's going on in Port Hope? After the issue of the Port Hope Crier last week great consternation broke out! The editor was proud of the effort, the supporters all crowed about the scoop over the Port Hope Guide and the Guide just did what it did best and sold advertising. But the aim of the Crier was achieved; the Town Council listened and deferred the vote and discussion about the AON development for a couple of weeks. For those of you who don't live in Port Hope the Crier's editorial is to the right and the interview with Mayor Austin is here and a picture of the Crier's delivery boy is on the left. This copy and the images have been lent to me by the Publisher of the Crier because the editorial board wants to let as many people as possible see it and discuss the issues, and where else but the BurdReport can the masses do that!.

To sum up this situation one can say that a developer has come to town and wants to build a lot of houses in locations that do not conform to the Official Plans. The developer has applied to change the Official Plan, in some locations wanting to triple the allowable density, and also doesn't want to build a school or provide the mandated amount of parkland. The Council is trying to split the difference, playing ball with the developer and also trying to mollify those residents who want the developer to develop according to the Official Plan. The Council has been accused of dealing with the developer in 'secret meetings' and of backing out of a public resolution that laid out specific conditions that the developer had to meet before getting approval to build. The Council was supposed to vote on amending the resolution of conditions last Tuesday but that has been deferred. The opponents claim victory and the Council says that it needed more time to get the paperwork ready. Stay tuned.

The public reaction to the Policing meetings
The Councils of Port Hope, Cobourg, and Hamilton Township held public meetings this week to discuss a report prepared by KPMG that examined the options of Police management.

This report was requested by all three Councils in response to the rising costs of policing (up to 40% of the big budget). It cost $40,000 and took three months to prepare. KPMG presented a report in presentation form and when asked why a text summary executive report was not available the main consultant replied, "We were not asked for one in the terms of reference!" So those people who picked up the paper and expected to find answers had to go to the meeting to have the charts explained. On Monday the residents of Port Hope went to the Legion Hall, look left. There they were treated to a presentation by two consultants: one an ex RCMPer and a bean counter. Taking the audience through the scenarios a couple of things stood out, "These figures are only estimates!", "The OPP figures are from the model not actuals" and so on. The audience then had a chance to ask questions. This audience was made up of 40% uniforms from all of the forces with an interes,t 20% politicians and the rest mainly from Ward 2, the former Hope Twp. These folks, the Ward 2ers really didn't want to talk about anything other than the OPP being the major force. Nothing much was resolved as Mayor Austin had already declared the "Public Meeting" to be an "Open House", whatever difference that made, so the committee only listened to public opinion, whether they take any notice is any one's guess.

The next meeting was in Cobourg Wednesday evening. This meeting had less of an audience than in Port Hope. Again most of the people present had vested interests, Cobourg Police Volunteers, Cobourg Police Service people, politicians and Hamilton Township residents. This time the audience had come prepared. Picking up on the KPMG statements about 'estimates' the report was immediately attacked as 'flawed'. "The figures are inaccurate therefore the report is flawed" said, Andrew Allen a Cobourg police officer. But Chief Clement went further. Challenging the Mayor, in public takes big balls, this guy has them. When the Mayor kept droning on about wanting, "Effective and efficient policing at the lowest cost" for the third or fourth time Chief Clement jumped up and said, Mr. Mayor are you willing right now to give me permission to sit down with Chief Hoath of Port Hope and we can save you $328,000 right away?" That brought Mayor Rick Austin into the conversation. "Chief Clement the only reason I told Chief Hoath to stop talking to you [this was in reference to the instruction given to Chief Hoath shortly after Chief Clement's arrival when they independently met and identified the cost savings through shared services] was because we had this study coming in and we didn't know what it was going to suggest." There was no response for Chief Clement and his question. In contrast to the meeting in Port Hope the majority of 'real people' in this meeting wanted nothing to do with the OPP. So the decisionmakers really do have a problem on this one.

Bring on the Election
Now that the drums of the Provincial election are beginning to beat look out for the New Democrats to make the big plunge and open an office in expectation of the writ being dropped. Local NDippers are looking for an election around the end of September, October 2nd being the favoured date. The only two questions being asked around here now are: which downtown store will the Liberals rent and more importatntly who will be manning it considering the chilly relationship between the Cobourg Liberals and the ruling elite from Brighton.

Does this look like a well dressed election candidate or just a guy who has been filling a Council seat for too long?
This fine picture captured the essence of summer. Two things come to mind. One is just how important is the spending of lots of bucks on a ballpark for a minority (baseball) and if the park is so important to so many people howcum this guy not the Mayor or his Deputy was allowed to open it dressed like this?

Oh for those who don't recognise this guy it is Councillor Bill MacDonald.

July 27th 2003, a collection of thoughts:

• More about the need for a study to determine the "Commercial Capacity"
• Some comments about the Policing swirl
• The Really Really Rich Conservatives
• The Rinaldi dance
• Turmoil in a couple of Municipalities
• Paper wars in Port Hope again

The Commercial Capacity discussion: This topic is taking a life of its own, probably due to the amount of misunderstanding about the issue. Here is a summary of the situation. The comments from the Town Planner are extracted from an email that he sent me on July 22nd 2003. The email is reproduced here, in full, so that all of you can see that I didn't 'cherrypick' his answers.

Myth 1 There is a background document attached to the Official Plan. No such luck! There was document prepared that allowed the Official Plan to state, "The Commercial Market Assessment found that there is not a significant opportunity for major new commercial development to the year 2006." . This was a document prepared by Barry Lyons in 1998 and the Official Plan was prepared on the basis of it. Presumably background documents have a limited shelf life and expire like male bees when they produce.

Comments from Glenn McGlashon the Town planner
"The creation of the current Official Plan cost approx. $70,000.00 (not including OMB costs) over a 3 year period, with the Lyons Commercial Assessment Report taking in a grand total of $12,000.00 of this budgeted amount. The retail market analysis component of the Cobourg West Business Park Secondary Plan, conducted by MGP, tallied upwards of $60,000.00+ (not including OMB costs). As you can see, the Lyons' Analysis is a far less comprehensive study of the community than MGP's. The July '03 MGP peer review report provides some further discussion on the comparisons between the extent of data used in the two reports. The 2003 PwC and MGP Reports are based on the latest and most comprehensive commercial space"

Myth 2 The Town of Cobourg knows just how much commercial development the existing retail/commercial sector can accept without doing damage to themselves. Wrong nobody knows because there is no baseline. All new development applications are examined using documents prepared by the applicant at their cost. These studies take the form of assessing what the commercial/retail state of affairs is, at the time of the application, and applying calculations to determine the amount of new development the existing commercial base can handle for the next few years.

What Mr. McGlashon says about this situation
From as far back as 1986, Cobourg's Official Plan has been set up to deal with new, large retail commercial commercial developments and expansions by way of the completion of a Retail Market Impact Study, with a set of tests established to measure commercial space, trade areas, impacts and so on prior to individual development approvals/denials. The Study and any peer review costs are always borne by the proponent. This process is similar to the Environmental Auditing policy approach of the OP, whereby applications adjacent to environmentally sensitive areas are evaluated based on a set of environmental criteria and decisions are made accordingly. This approach was implemented based on the exorbitant costs it would have taken to undertake a comprehensive environmental study for the entire Town

Mr. McGlashon continues:
From what I can see by your e-mails and submissions, it appears that your interest lies in the need for a comprehensive, Town-wide commercial policy review. In addition, you indicated that it would be a solid idea to include such a review as part of the next 5 year Official Plan update in 2005/2006. A comprehensive policy review alone would cost in the order of $75,000.00 - $100,000.00, not including any other OP policy issues that may require updating. This would be a matter for Council to decide on from both a policy and budget perspective, which could be supported by planning staff if Council is willing to allocate funds.

My Position and comments:

• The present situation is unacceptable. For the Town Planner to be in the position of not knowing the answer to, "How much more commercial activity can the Town accept" is scandalous.
• For the Town to continue using the present method is extremely unfair to developers, and if any developer does decide to go through the present procedure the results will always be judged suspect because of the RCCL situation and the amount of development they have scooped up until 2011.
• We must spend the money on a study that will allow to know the answers to the above questions. After all the amount is equivalent to the amount we have spent on parking lot beautification and only approximately 25% of the amount we have spent giving a local baseball team their own playpen in Donegan Park and 2.5% of the amount we will be spending to pretty up the Harbour.

Some comments about the Policing swirl:
Two things about this. One is the announcement of the new member of the Police Services Board. The choice was again, so the underground goes, a contest between the Mayor and the Chair. The Mayor lost and Greg Kay was selected Just what we need another white male face - a lawyer to boot! and in the process a fine guy, Bryan Baxter, lost out. So much for diversity and the PSB being a reflection of society.
The names of the people who made the short list were:
Mr. G. Kay (Greg), Mr. R. Mitchell, Mrs. M. Godawa (Marg), Mr. G. Ender (Gerry), Mr. B. Baxter (Bryan) and Mr. R. Kerr (Ron)

The other point is that all kinds of trees are going to get cut down in the coverage of the opinions about who should police the area. Hamilton Township is the first of the three municipalities to give any indication of its intentions. Musing about how difficult it is to go back to a municipal police service once one is disbanded it appears that Hamilton Twp, likes the service and cost of being policed by Cobourg. There are two public meetings next week to discuss the topic - Monday in Port Hope and Wednesday in Cobourg. Should be interesting, the so called taxfighters against the locals.
My Position is simple:
The local force should be made up of people who live in the community, know the community and want to be here. Now I know some OPP officers fit this criteria but others would only see Cobourg as a stepping stone to something else. I want the lowest costs with the highest community benefits. A regional force should be established. If you could guarantee that true cost comparisons were available and that the OPP wouldn't be bumping up the second and third contracts then I might look at it. But not for long.

The Really Really Rich Conservatives:
There has been some public speculation about our local MPP's election office even though there is no election call yet. His office on King St. has been festooned with leftover election signs and there is even a large presentation cheque that Doug presented to one of the local agencies as part of his public office duties. Some people have questioned the propriety of this public showing and one person, in a letter to the editor, even mocked the office as a shrine to Doug Galt.

That was enough for Mary Ann Irwin, the President of the Northumberland riding. Demonstrating the very activity that garnered the criticism she took a local letter writer to task for questioning partisan electoral behaviour and then went on to boast about the achievements (in her mind) of the Galt government. Perhaps she doesn't understand the questioning of the mixing of the two activities, except in an election campaign but others do.

Also she justified the office being there because it was the Riding Association that paid for it. That is the very point that critics want to make - election offices during election campaigns, no matter who pays for it. But drawing attention to the Riding Association also must draw attention to the Riding Association's bank account. During the campaign period last time the Riding Association received $108,801.97 from various sources. I guess if they expect to get the same amount this time funding an office is peanuts at $1,500 a month. Declaring the total amount of donations to the candidate, during the campaign period, as $97,073.91 it would appear that Doug's campaign had $205,875.88 to spend, so if we make the assumption that the same amount of money could be raised for the expected election soon who is going to stand a chance in matching that? It also appears that in perusing the documents filed with Elections Ontario - the CR1 and CR3, the local Association recycled (laundered) $138,090 in transfers, presumably to the central party. No wonder we get the Oilcan on every other night on TV, they can afford it.

The final question in this affair is simple, If it is illegal in the Town of Cobourg to display municipal election signs (on private and public property) until the close of nominations does that go for the senior elections and if it does perhaps the local Riding Association should obey the law and take the signs down

The Rinaldi dance:
In the East end of the County is a municipality called Brighton. About 8,000 people live in it and they are all very happy or just don't care about local politics as I see it. The Mayor of Brighton is Lou Rinaldi. Lou also happens to be the nominated candidate for the Liberal Party in the upcoming Provincial election. This election has been called off a couple of times since the candidates were nominated and now it seems that most candidates who are also local politicians are getting quite close to having to make a major decision. Which arena would they run in. Lou being a Liberal used to having positions on both sides of the fence at the same time is playing a very fine game. He has said that he wants to be a member of the Provincial Parliament, he has also said he wants to be Mayor of Brighton if he doesn't make the big game. But that is where I wonder about the citizens of Brighton. They are willing to have a person for Mayor who says he wants to be something else and by the way if he doesn't gain higher office he will settle for being Mayor. Perhaps the citizens of Brighton like such an attitude or they like Lou so much that they are willing to put up with his behaviour. Showing lack of commitment to Brighton by coming back as a loser surely should make some people in Brighton think twice about having such a guy who shows lack of commitment as their Mayor. I just can't believe that a member of his Council doesn't see it this way and would want to be Mayor in Lou's place. Taking it one step further, if 'Oilcan' Eves chickens out again (he has twice already) and puts the election off till next Spring will Lou abandon Brighton four months after pledging loyalty to said place?

Turmoil in a couple of Municipalities:
Political turmoil is erupting in a couple of County fiefdoms. Trent Hills has suffered the resignation of the two top and well respected administrators, Lorraine Brace the CAO and the Town Engineer, a great guy whose name escapes me at the moment. As well the current Mayor and previous Reeve of Percy Township, George McCleary, is not running again. Sources tell me that the problem is a turfwar between the Campbelforders and the Percyites. These two communities were amalgamated three years ago and some councilors and the unelected elites are divvying up the spoils on a territorial basis on the old boundaries, hardly a spirit of new community building. I guess it is always easier to live in the past than build the future!

In Hamilton Township something even more curiouser has happened. Rewind a few months and remember Mayor Fred Holloway's troubles with a rented house that is part of his property management portfolio? An oil fuel spill that went undetected in the winter time and allowed 300 gallons to pollute a Township ditch and a watercourse has come back to bite the Mayor big time. In the course of the investigation his statements to the Ministry of the Environment conflicted with everybody else's recollection of the events. This statement will be challenged at week long hearing into the affair in August. The crux of the hearing will be the attempt to assess costs for the cleanup and this is where the turmoil now exists. An advertisement in the Cobourg Daily Star which was signed by all the other members of Council disavows the Council from protecting Fred and even goes so far to say is that Fred's costs will be paid by Fred and he may, if assessed, have to pay the Township costs. Some estimates put the amount as high as $50,000. So what has the Council done to Fred? Tossed him overboard that's what! The Deputy Mayor wants to be Mayor and the open DM's spot is going to be contested by Mark Lovshin and Pat McCourt so it's open season out in Camborne. Meanwhile Fred Holloway has declared that he still wants the job and everybody is running the other way.

Paper wars in Port Hope again:
The folks who admitted that it was going to be tough to carry on against the Osprey machine - those same folks who published the "Port Hope Crier", have reissued a one time edition this week. Carrying the alternate opinion about the AON development 5000 copies will be mailed to each house in Port Hope (BTW if any one has a spare copy email me and I will pick it up). It is hoped that the scintillating journalism and piercing investigation backed by the fierce editorial writing of Prof. John Miller will galvanize the population into stampeding Town Hall on Tuesday night where the local burghers will be so scared off by revolt that they will either toss out the AON application or defer the vote.

July 15th 2003, a report from last night's council meeting

In a shocking move the Cobourg Town Council deferred a vote on the latest phase of the development at Strathy Rd last night. In a 4 to 2 vote the Council, citing various reasons, defeated a motion to approve an Official Plan amendment that would have allowed Royal Cobourg Centres Ltd to build five buildings smaller than 6490 square feet totaling 53,000 square feet. These additions would have brought the total square footage that RCCL controls to 280,000 square feet on ten acres, 18% of the Town's commercial inventory. However they did subsequently move to defer the application request until the next Council meeting in August.

Six presenters made their positions known about the RCCL application: Keith Oliver spoke about the need for more time to study the report and to conduct a survey to determine shopping attitudes since the arrival of Walmart and its impact on the downtown. Manfred Schumann continued to cause eyes to glaze over when he bombarded the assembly with statistics and assertions of errors in the latest report. Yours truly tried to make the point that despite a three year process we appear to be no further ahead in our knowledge of the ability to know the development potential of the Town and it's good planning to know these things. The developer of the Cobourg Jail property (whose name escaped me and because I had not planned to write a story didn't get it) spoke about the need for more time because if he is going to build downtown in the future he has to know the groundrules and they appear to be changing by the minute (my words). Chris Wong of RCCL spoke to rebut some of the speakers' remarks and Mr. Tate of PwC, who wrote the report justifying the extra space told the assembly that he did not say, in his report, "That the RCCL proposal will monopolize the commercial capacity until 2011" as some speakers had charged.

In a fully packed Council chamber some councilors were obviously trying to have it both ways: please Walmart and with an eye on the upcoming elections appear to be responding to the public's concerns. However Mr. Spooner, the Deputy Mayor, was so obviously hard-line (at least last night), arguing that the Downtown might be harmed, that I believe that he immediately lost the prospect of another campaign donation from RCCL (he got $649.00 last time). Other Councilors, Williams and Jackson argued that not only was the report given to them at short notice (three working days ago) and therefore not digested yet but the exemptions given to RCCL were too much. Where have these folks been? The exemptions have been around since the OMB hearing last year!

So the amendment has been put off until next month despite Councilor McCaughey obstinately insisting that nothing will be changed by a delay and making oblique references to a possible OMB hearing if the amendment was defeated. Mr. McCaughey was aided in his efforts to earn their campaign contributions from RCCL by Councilor MacDonald who was prompting McCaughey with supporting points in his arguments. The Mayor even went so far to remind councilors that at the largest All-Candidates meeting in the last election all present, and successfully elected, supported Walmart's application to build. He failed to remind them and no-one pointed out the obvious - Walmart has been built, but it appeared to this observer that the Mayor's effort was an obvious hint to tell all they are still on the RCCL payroll. The only visible response to the defeat of the motion, from the RCCL representative - Mr. Chris Wong, was his immediate and pointed quit of the room. Head high, eyes blazing and with a gaggle of flunkies following he left, being chased by local columnist Robert Washburn obviously in hot pursuit of a quote. We shall hear what was said shortly.

So what is next, if we assume that the vote to adopt the amendment is a sure thing next month what can the opposition achieve?
A few things to be sure:

• we can establish the commercial capacity of the Town, at this point and for the future
• allow a survey to taken that will realistically assess the impact of Walmart on the Downtown
• give the local pols, who have felt that they have been swept up in the Walmart euphoria a sense of independence
• be dragged kicking and screaming into the night

• An interesting situation at the the local hydro utility
• The politicking at the Police Station
• Will the Town ever see another police dog?

An interesting situation at the the local hydro utility. A funny thing happened the other day when I phoned the local power company. As an owner, well an 1/18,000 shareholder, I wanted to read the latest Annual Report. You know the document that public companies have to file every year as a disclosure to their shareholders. I wanted to see one. As the company, LUSI, has been incorporated as a public company since April 12th 2000, there should be at least two lying around in the filing system. Calling the the executive secretary to the President, I asked for the document. I was told that I would be contacted and told when to pick one up. A couple of days later I did get a call from the ES to Pres. and she told me, in a very friendly way, "I have been instructed to tell you that I can't give you what you want you will have to contact the "Shareholders' Representative", Mr. Steve Robinson at the Town Hall. I immediately left a message on Mr. Robinson's voicemail and a couple of days later called about the message. On the Friday of this week I did hear back from Mr. Robinson and I await with bated breath to read the contents of the report - I will be reporting the salient points as on Saturday I bumped into a member of senior management of LUSI who told me that startup costs for this operation are now topping out at 2.6 million dollars! Let's just see what the report contains.

The politicking at the Police Station
Local politicking has ticked off the Mayor of Cobourg. At the Cobourg Police Services Board the membership is in a bit of a turmoil. The Chair has resigned and one of the Provincial Appointees has yet to be replaced, that means two votes of the five are missing in action. But in a rearguard salvo the outgoing Chair (outgoing as leaving rather than as gregarious, because he is a tightass) decided to conduct a vote for his replacement. He nominated the surviving Provincial Appointee, Alan Robinson, and the nomination sailed through with one dissenting vote. Mayor Delanty was obviously miffed and he gave the reason as that because Mr. Robinson did not live in Cobourg he should not be the Chair. I think the real reason is that Mr. Delanty now realises that his sphere of influence is zilch. Mr. Robinson wanted to be Chair and voted for himself, the Vice Chair (Mrs DeVeau), in a position of what some might call a conflict of interest as she is in real life Mr. Robinson's employee, obviously thought her boss was the right person for the job and voted for him. Mr. Henderson, who has been at odds with Mr. Delanty over Delanty's questioning of some of his moves in the recent tempest about the Board's activities and the old chief obviously saw the opportunity for real payback and voted for Mr. Robinson and Mr. Watson's vote was vacant. Results Delanty 1 Others 3. Stay tuned the new appointment from the Town will obviously be a Delanty sycophant and the new Provincial appointment will be a good old Tory boy straight from Doug Galt's office so votes still cannot be predicted in the future. Perhaps with a new strong Chief of Police the Board will become more irrelevent than usual so who cares. Just another argument to abolish the whole bloody setup and put the members of the Police Services Board on the election ballot.

Will the Town ever see another police dog?
Say good-bye to Wally Justice and Percy Sniffer. These two animals will shortly be removed from the nominal roll of the Cobourg Police Service. Citing a budget shortfall, Wally's sickness and Percy's underutilisation, Chief Clement wants to axe them. It will cost $130,000 to outfit a van and assign an officer to run this department. Obviously Chief Clement sees a better use for this kind of money. However this topic of conversation has assumed a life of its own.
Don Missen the officer who has been working with dogs ever since the department was established a few years ago is retiring (leaving as opposed to being shy) and Wally Justice (the German Shepherd dog that was purchased by the local Rotary club with great fanfare) is not a well dog (sick not drawing water) so a review of the situation was necessary. But even this was not a simple affair and it was handled the way this Board has handled all of its problems; out of the public eye in a secret meeting!! A secret meeting to discuss a dog, what a stretch of the regulations that mandates three reasons for secret meetings, legal, personnel and something else but definitely not the dog unless we talk about the dog as an employee!!
So the question will we have another dog? Probably not and this is another demonstration that Cobourg is moving into bureaucratic policing as opposed to community policing. The community wanted a dog and liked the programme, to say that it was ineffective and can be covered off by the guy from Durham with his dog is silly, but that's what we will have to live with. Welcome to the modern police department and the 21st Century.

Campaign updates: Since I have announced my intention to be a Councilor and run in the Fall reaction has been good (why wouldn't it?) but cutting out the bullshit I think that most people I have been speaking to are looking forward to the vote. A sense of change is in the air and the population is fed-up with the 'club' that runs the Town. Donations have been coming in and thanks to those who have given. Just remember that donations under $99 stay anonymous.

Congratulations to the weatherman for the super sunny days last weekend, he really made the Waterfront Festival a success.

A big hand to Robert Washburn, for his latest column in Wednesday's Cobourg Daily Star. He eloquently defended the principle of universal taxation and skewered the electoral plans of the Provincial Government to give a tax credit to Older Adults, for being old, as a rebate on their education tax. Summed up very simply the principle of everybody paying taxes is a social equation: "I'll pay for your education and you pay for my pensions!"

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