By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
A special guest at Friday’s Downtown Business Improvement Area board meeting – the first since the COVID-19 crisis began – was Cobourg’s Chief of Police Paul VandeGraaf.
A keen area of interest among members is the increase in vandalism. A recent article in Today’s Northumberland reported a discarded syringe found among garbage, the window of a King Street bank broken, daily thefts of toilet paper and hand sanitizer from the two portable washrooms at Victoria Hall’s southwest corner.
Following this discussion in an in-camera portion of the meeting, interim chair (and Cobourg Councillor) Adam Bureau said the decision was made not to augment police services with private security for now.
“There’s bylaws and red tape to go through, making sure there’s a clear understanding between the security company, the police and the town,” Bureau explained.
And there’s a further consideration, he continued – even if you could move the people behind these actions out of the downtown, they could certainly be doing such things elsewhere in town.
Bureau has been deeply involved in the opiate crisis, working with the many concerned agencies on the issue to address not only the drug aspect but the associated problems of homelessness and crime – such as what’s happening downtown.
“Transition House is great, and is needed, and I know at the high school there’s a shelter. But it’s more a question of how do we transition them to places where (a) there is shelter, housing available, and (b) support,” he said.
And now that the weather is warming up and homeless individuals can be outdoors for longer periods of time, there’s a chance there may even be less use of such shelter.
For the time being, he said, “we are still looking at the different avenues.”
The public portion of the meeting, open to members of the public and local media, tackled an especially pressing concern, since no DBIA meeting has been held for weeks.
“The first thing I wanted to do as interim chair, and since we were able to have these meetings over Zoom, is get the members’ feedback on if they are open – and if they are open, what are they doing and how could the board support them in any way.”
Discussions centred around marketing strategies members might suggest for the board for communicating with members of the public – a vital consideration, he said, since they are the major supporters of the downtown.
“We don’t have the public, we don’t have the businesses,” Bureau stated.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
