Crate vs. Cleveland
Warden and mayor square off over criticism of county staff
Over the past week, Trent Hills Mayor Bob Crate, who is Warden of Northumberland County for 2026, and Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland have been trading barbed comments about each other.
The issue, as it has been for the past few years, is homeless people in Cobourg and the fact some are drug users who expose others to dangerous drugs or are involved in other illegal activities.
Cleveland insists he’s just trying to eradicate criminal behaviour in his municipality. Crate has argued Cleveland has been too critical of county efforts.
In the latest go round, Cleveland is suggesting he has been libelled by Crate and the county’s acting Chief Administrative Officer Glenn Dees, and will consider legal action.
For their part, Crate and Dees have accused Cleveland of irresponsibly attacking the county’s social services staff, saying that his comments are “dangerous because it deters people from seeking the help they desperately need, fearing stigma, judgment, or being labelled as criminals.”
Cleveland has been pushing county council to undertake a wide sweeping investigation of how the social services department works and what it should be doing. That effort has been shelved at least until the county hires a new chief administrative officer.
If the review doesn’t occur, Cleveland says he will ask the province to step in.
“I’m going to be asking the Province of Ontario to conduct its own independent review of this department,” he said.
The threat of asking the province to take over occurs while there are rumours that Premier Doug Ford’s government is poised to increase its power over counties, regions and municipalities, centralizing more authority at Queen’s Park.
“I will not be bowed by bullying or any childish intimidation ploys,” Cleveland said in a statement. He insists he is only urging action to stamp out criminal activities.
“Despite what a lot of utopian fantasists may tell you, the problem of criminal drug activity will never, ever be solved by the affordable housing solutions,” he told Today’s Northumberland in a video interview last week.
“To reduce the work of our staff – and all social service work – to the enablement of criminal activity, and call for widespread ‘investigations’; to infer that people accessing social services are all criminals; to make such statements in an open forum, from the seat of the highest office of local government – this is not only irresponsible. It is reprehensible. And it is dangerous,” says a statement by Crate and Dees in response.
They conclude by saying: “Rhetoric and blame undermine our collective ability to deliver effective, compassionate responses – and they do not get us any closer to meaningful solutions.”
A large chunk of the county council meeting on Jan. 21 was a spent with Cleveland’s objections to the county expanding the number of beds being used in the homeless shelter at 310 Division Street in Cobourg. He maintained county staff was exceeding the municipal limit, while staff said they were following the guidelines that had been accepted by the town’s staff. (That’s a very edited version of the discussion.)
It will be a long nine months until the next municipal election.
You can read all Trent Hills News stories on my website here.
I see nothing wrong with having someone come in from outside the Municipality and investigate what is going on with drugs and homelessness. I have been following Cleaveland performance on the Cobourg blog. He is a new politician and from what I read is trying to make things better in Cobourg. I believe it is time the Province has an investigator come in and do an audit of Municipality’s. Staff and long time elected officials get set in there ways. Sometimes a new broom can fine ways to save money. One example of in my time on council questioning the administration on a programme. After a discussion the answer was well it gives a person a job. At present in Trent Hills I have questioned what the utilities customers are paying for and perhaps some services should be billed to all tax payers. I am waiting on a reply.
Solid reporting on a tricky issue. The tension between addressing criminal activity and supporting vulnerable people in these situations rarely gets resolved with antagonistic rhetoric, but its also unrealistic to expect perfect unanimity on such complex stuff. Cleveland's threat to involve the province feels like a risky escalation given the Ford government's centralization tendencies lately.