By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Following their presentation to the county at its June council meeting on the Brookside encampment, Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland congratulated Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty and Councillor Randy Barber for “standing up for Cobourg’s rights to Northumberland County council.”
And while county council did vote to support the town in its efforts to recover from the Province of Ontario some of the costs it had incurred in dealing with an encampment that the province refused to authorize the closure of, it had occurred to Beatty that the town had not actually authorized staff actually to make that approach to the province. She took the opportunity at this weeks June Cobourg council meeting to pass that motion.
Cleveland – who had been at the presentation in his capacity as Cobourg’s delegate to county council – commended Beatty and Barber on the “incredible job” they did, and addressed a word “to the public that may or may not be listening” (referring to the fact that this item came up near the end of an eight-and-a-half-hour council meeting and was addressed after midnight).
The negotiations being pursued with the county on an agreement governing the operation of their homeless shelter at 310 Division St. are not an indication that the town is scuttling its recent bylaw governing emergency shelters, he stated.
“We have a bylaw, and at no point has that bylaw come into discussion at this council as an opportunity of looking to repealing that.”
Should there by any thought of repealing the bylaw, Cleveland added, that would be a public process.
“It will never, ever be in closed session or like that regarding the bylaw removal. It has to be in the public domain.
“To those who are spreading false information, no bylaw has been questioned. Our emergency bylaw is still in place. There’s no intention of this council to move on that bylaw. I just need to make sure it’s clear on the public record that what we are doing as an agreement has nothing to do with the bylaw.”
Barber offered his own reaction to the presentation he and Beatty had made.
“I was taken aback, honestly, on the congratulatory comments that were made by two or three council members after we had finished,” he stated.
“They supported us in their verbiage, and I thought it was very nice to hear. I can honestly say it made me feel that we had made our points succinctly and shortly.”
