Comments from Gail Rayment on rude behaviour at Cobourg council

First published: October 27, 2007

I had been at the two meetings where the subject of the possible truck lane at King and William came up and have already made some comments in the Star. There are, however, a couple of other relevant factors.

1. Dilys Robertson had quite recently appeared before Council as a strong opponent of the proposed ice rink, and was therefore ‘known’ as someone who had opposed Council.

2. Dilys is Irish by background. Her speech patterns are those of her native land and are somewhat forceful, unlike the Canadian way of speaking which is less accentuated. I would bet that had a Canadian read her text (which, I must admit, had a soupcon of sarcasm in it) it would not have got Councillor McDonald riled to the same extent. I watched the video that Ben Burd had helpfully posted and was surprised at how (for Dilys) quiet and reasonable she was.

I would note that the truck which appears to be the cause of all the commotion is still exiting northwards via Margaret St. It is just taking a short cut and it is certainly not necessary northbound. Why has it not been told to exit via King? Also, I am not a traffic expert, but I live close to the intersection in question. It seems to me that if you moved the stop lines back on King on the west side, with a sign saying Stop Here when Light is Red (as happens quite often elsewhere) an articulated truck should be able to manoeuvre round. It would go right across the road, but so does a President’s Choice truck turning into No Frills. In addition put a weight restriction on Margaret St. between King and south of the Home Building Centre.

I think it is not unrelated that we have a large Public Works Department (one of the largest Town budgets, I believe) which likes to be kept occupied. Which leads me to:

The Albert/Bagot intersection. The residents have now got the Stop Sign they requested. Which has been planted in the roadway right next to the bollards which no one wanted anyway. Seems they won’t be taken away so will continue to be the traffic hazard they have already proved to be. A message there, perhaps?

Gail Rayment

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