The building is a handy place for users to gather, where their dealers can conveniently find them – dealers who are sometimes armed, just feet away from families using Rotary Park.

“It seems like we are placing less value on the rights of 99.99% of the community in favour of the few who have no incentive to follow the rules.”

Leighton lives in a condominium that faces that park and, in her estimation, accounts for $400,000 a year in tax revenue, many of whom came from Toronto to invest their life savings in new homes in what they thought would be a quaint community. What they got was multiple bike thefts, increased insurance premiums and $100,000 in costs for a new security-camera system.

Agitated, and at times close to tears, she denounced neighbouring communities for failing to set up homeless shelters and leaving Cobourg to deal with the problem – though she did praise the efforts of Cobourg police to deal with these situations when they are called in.

In the end, she called for several specific actions – for police and bylaw officials to provide “continual” monitoring of the building, to require security staff hired for the shelter at 310 Division St. to pay regular visits to the building, and to ensure police and ambulance personnel have a key to that shelter in case they have to enter.

Council passed a motion to implement these actions and to pass along her presentation to the Cobourg Police Services Board and Chief Paul VandeGraaf, as well as to refer it to staff for a report back.

Municipal Clerk Brent Larmer said it's no problem to provide that key, and that bylaw staff already are making efforts to be there more frequently – after all, they are headquartered in the Market Building just steps away.

Updates have been made the Nuisance Bylaw, Larmer added, strengthening the powers of the bylaw officers in terms of such things as loitering and littering