By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Equitable police funding has become the fifth topic on which the Town of Cobourg will seek to make a delegation at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in August.
Councillor Adam Bureau made the motion at Wednesday’s council meeting to put it on the list, following discussions at Tuesday’s Cobourg Police Services Board meeting.
“In the world of policing, the province has given 15% to all the municipalities that have OPP,” said Bureau – who chairs the Police Services Board.
“With labour negotiations and costs going up, the province thought that would be a great idea to do that – but anybody who has their own municipal police force didn’t get anything.
“Fifteen per cent on the police budget would be huge – huge – to the Cobourg taxpayers.”
Council voted to put this on the list of the four delegations they had planned.
Along with this delegation to the Ministry of the Solicitor General, they will plan for another delegation to this ministry concerning funding to reduce exposure to cancer for fire fighters.
The other three delegations planned concern harbour infrastructure costs (to the Ministry of Infrastructure), support for police and court costs (Ministry of the Attorney General) and recent provincial land-use planning changes and their impact on the town (Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing).
