posted Oct 18, 2024
A town hall meeting to discuss the activities and recommendations of the township's water/wastewater taskforce was held at the Legion on Oct. 10, 2024. The presentation slides are available [here]. This blog post does not go into any details from the presentation (see the slides for details). The meeting was organized and chaired by Anne Guest and Robyn Voisey, who are members of the township's taskforce. They are also members of a concerned citizen's group who have been raising awareness of concern over the water bills for several years.
Note that the community meeting presentation represents the voice of the concerned citizen's group and does not necessarily represent the voice of the entire task force. The taskforce's final report to Council is a different document and is available [here].
About 40 people attended the Community Meeting. Anne and Robyn presented the slides, which was followed by general discussion.
It was very evident in the discussion that the community has a high level of concern and frustration associated with the water bill rates. Many complained of poor communication and a lack of transparency by the township surrounding the rate increases. Some expressed a lack of trust in the Township Council's handling of this situation. Several people said that the rising water bill rates are near a level that would force them to leave Cobden.
One suggestion was that perhaps growing Cobden's population might help. Some other small towns give incentives to builders and buyers to encourage additional people to move to their town. Increasing Cobden's population would increase water bill revenue and thereby reduce rates.
Overall, there was strong support to hold town hall meetings more frequently.
TWP