By Cecilia Nasmith

The advisory committees that serve the Town of Cobourg got their moment in the spotlight at this week's committee-of-the-whole council meeting, as each submitted 2019 annual reports and 2020 work plans to council.

Written reports were received from the Accessibility Advisory Committee, Heritage Advisory Committee, Sustainability and Climate Change Advisory Committee, Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, Transportation Advisory Committee and Planning and Development Advisory Committee. However, council was also able to hear in-person presentation from most of the committees.

Susan Caron of the accessibility committee spoke of continuing transportation challenges, relating an occasional lack of accessible taxis and unavailable Wheeltrans buses.

Her committee hopes to establish an on-line database of concerns and suggestions to address them, and advised council of plans for a role-playing event during Accessibility Week (May 25 to 31).

Graham Andrews of the heritage committee said they had approved 54 heritage permits last year and put a representative on the Community Improvement Plan and Cultural Master Plan steering committees. In the works, Andrews said, are plans for a new heritage-conservation district recognizing the Corktown area where Irish immigrants settled in the 19th century.

Minnie deYoung said the sustainability and climate change committee is primarily focused on the reduction of greenhouse gases, driven by a rapidly narrowing window of time yet available to avoid catastrophe. They hope to effect this by influencing decisions in such areas as infrastructure, development and transportation decisions.

This detracts from their efforts to set up an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan, she said, but that is still on the back burner.

“For every $1 invested in local resilience projects, you get $6 in cost avoidance,” she said.

Beth Bellaire represented parks and recreation to describe their work on such projects as the east pier and campgrounds, west harbour, parkland supply and trail connectivity.

Goals include increasing the tree-canopy coverage to 35% from 27%, pursuing age-friendly-community designation and possibly establishing a youth advisory committee.