County Reacts To New 10-Year Fire Deal With Town

POINT TUPPER - This community will now be protected in times of fire or similar emergencies by the Port Hawkesbury Volunteer Fire Department, thanks to a new ten-year contract between the town and neighbouring Richmond County. 

Reached in March, the deal will see the county pay $60,000 to the town in the 2021-22 fiscal year for the Port Hawkesbury department to handle residential and industrial fires in Point Tupper, a community nestled inside the boundary line between the county and the town that is home to several of the largest industrial businesses in the Strait of Canso. The county will pay an extra $1,000 in each of the following nine years of the contract.

The new deal ends an often-testy relationship between the county and the town over this issue, including a three-year period that saw Richmond officials change the fire department serving Point Tupper three times. The Louisdale and District Volunteer Fire Department, located 28 kilometres from Point Tupper, was chosen to oversee the community's emergency-response needs this past July.

Speaking at the most recent regular monthly meeting of Richmond Municipal Council, District Three representative Melanie Sampson - whose constituency takes in both Louisdale and Point Tupper - thanked the Louisdale volunteer firefighters for taking on such a difficult task while the two sides attempted to straighten out the situation. 

Following the meeting, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette said the county re-entered talks with the town in the hopes of striking a long-term deal in the area of five years, and were "pleasantly surprised" that Port Hawkesbury councillors were willing to suggest a contract as lengthy as a decade.

However, Mombourquette also confirmed that she has received complaints from some Richmond County residents about the concept of councillors negotiating contracts that would outlast their current four-year council terms. She noted that several such contracts, ranging from hiring municipal staff to moving the county's solid waste to landfills in neighbouring municipalities, can often last well beyond a single council term.