Meeting Looks at Encampment Impacts to Cobourg
(Today’s Northumberland file photo)
By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Reports have come out on what the encampment at the former Brookside Youth Centre is costing the Town of Cobourg and, at last week’s meeting of the Community Services, Protection and Economic Development standing committee, Fire Chief Ellard Beavan said that service from his department has cost $67,743 as of Sept. 30.
Municipal Clerk Brent Larmer added that the bylaw division has dealt with 52 homeless-encampment issues so far this year, 22 of them in August and September alone. These would be issues that arose outside of the Brookside encampment, he said, since municipal enforcement has nothing to do with that site.
Both men shared other statistics of interest.
Beavan said his department, so far this year, has received 1,501 calls for service, including such things as fires, water rescues and carbon-dioxide investigations.
“I’m proud to say our average response time is five minutes 34 seconds,” Beavan said.
“This equates to 4,226 hours of staff time.”
There have also been 308 training sessions (representing 6,352 staff hours) on such things as vehicle extrication, live fire response and building construction.
There have been 213 inspections, and visits to 415 homes in connection with their fire and carbon dioxide alarm program, and members have attended 89 public-education events.
Larmer added that, for August and September, the bylaw division received 230 calls service, occasioned occasioned by animal complaints, parking complaints and property-related issues.
The AMP program continues strong, offering Administrative Monetary Penalties in cases that can be diverted outside the court system and dealt with more expeditiously. In August and September, it dealt with 618 bylaw-infraction cases and screened 44 new cases.
