‘We’d be crumbs swept under the rug’
Council rejects idea of municipal amalgamation
I’ve avoided writing this story for a few months now because the conversation struck me as boring and unlikely to go anywhere and I didn’t want to waste your time.
But since Trent Hills council was forced to consider it at its meeting on Tuesday, I will take a run at the topic, but try to be brief and interesting.
The topic is municipal restructuring or amalgamation, and interest in the topic starts and probably ends with Cobourg Mayor Lucas Cleveland.
Cleveland, first elected in 2022, thinks there are too many levels of government. When talking at Northumberland County Council, he frequently refers to the many levels, which leads Warden Brian Ostrander, also mayor of Brighton, to point out that there are only two levels in the area – the county and seven local municipalities.
But Cleveland has railed on many times about the need to cut costs and do away with something, anything. During the discussion on the 2025 budget, he recommended cutting staff in each department by a set percentage, with no explanation or consideration of what areas should be cut and what ones might need to be saved or expanded.
Trent Hills Mayor Bob Crate has said that Cleveland has suggested Trent Hills become part of Peterborough County and Brighton become part of Quinte West. Cobourg and Port Hope would go it alone in his view, although he’s also suggested encouraging development in the space between the communities, so eventually there might just be Portbourg.
Pushed by Cleveland, county council asked staff for a report on restructuring. At its Dec. 18 meeting it considered the study that suggested two options – full amalgamation to create a single government across all of Northumberland County or a focus on looking at one or two areas where the municipalities could work together to cut costs and increase efficiency.
County council agreed to have their clerk send a letter to each municipality to see whether they would like to be part of this process and what approach they would prefer. They have until March 3 to respond.
The response from Trent Hills was blunt on Tuesday. The idea of amalgamation is a non-starter in this community, it was clear during the council meeting.
Deputy Mayor Mike Metcalf said residents here would be ignored by a single government that would focus on the more populated southern towns.
“We’d be like crumbs of last night’s dinner swept under the rug. We’d become the badlands of Northumberland County or Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. I don’t see anything good coming from a full amalgamation.
“We would have two large municipalities on the shores of Lake Ontario telling us how we are supposed to operate up here,” he added. “I don’t see any of that being beneficial to us.”
Crate noted that while the county uses a weighted voting system for recorded votes which gives Port Hope and Cobourg more votes, the remaining five municipalities have control if they vote together. “I think that sticks in the craw of some.”
Crate said the amalgamation discussion was driven by “the feeling from some municipalities that they don’t need the county.”
Crate said Trent Hills is already on the right path since it uses the county’s IT department, shares GIS mapping, and cooperates on road services.
“It would be very expensive to break up and how do you do it?” he asked.
“Shared services is something we do all the time,” Metcalf said. “I’d support a study that looks at whether there are efficiencies we can get across municipalities.”
In the end, council supported having the municipalities look at ways they can work together to share services.
But while Trent Hills has rejected the amalgamation option, Cobourg, at Cleveland’s instigation, has gone in the other direction.
At a council meeting in late January, Cobourg voted that the county should ask municipalities how they feel about the option of the county disappearing, reports Northumberland98.7ca.
Cleveland said that in his opinion the county will not want to include that option “because the majority of the county's municipalities require the Cobourg tax base to fund their operations. They know, without Cobourg, they would not be able to provide the level of services they have become accustomed to.
“At present, there are probably several municipalities in Northumberland County that would not be able to exist without Cobourg,” he said.
The next county council meeting is March 19 when presumably it will hear the responses from all municipalities and will discuss what, if anything, it will do.
You can read all Trent Hills News stories on the website here.
Well, that mayor sounds like someone I know… I’m sorry that you had to write this story, but happy that you did. 🗞️
As a long time resident of Campbellford and a member of the over eighty club I have seen the loss of the Health Unit Office, three court days a month, the down grading of the OPP Det. In 1993 there was a staff of twenty four. There was a Det. Commander here. Is this progress or just operations going to bigger communities. Don,t see any advantage of operations going to Cobourg and Port Hope. Vote no Trent Hills.