West Hants mediation with Windsor Fire drags on with no deal

Ten months after the Windsor Fire Department and Municipality of West Hants agreed to sit down with an outside mediator to try and settle a contract dispute, there's still no new deal for fire services.

In June, a last minute decision to mediate staved off a Windsor Fire threat to yank service for neighbouring communities over an unpaid contract with West Hants. But a deadline for an agreement passed in February, and although both sides continue to talk, neither is commenting on the status of negotiations.

This comes as West Hants council deals with another remnant from that dispute: a conflict of interest allegation against one councillor that emerged during the debate over fire services nearly two years ago.

A previously confidential report prepared by a lawyer appointed by Nova Scotia's attorney general has found West Hants Coun. Victor Swinamer in conflict during one meeting. His daughter is the spouse of Scott Burgess, the fire chief in Windsor.

West Hants council agreed by a vote of six to three to accept the report Tuesday night, according to the Hants Journal. However, it's not clear what will happen next.

"Basically, we don't know where to go from here," Warden Richard Dauphinee told CBC News Tuesday.

The report, obtained by CBC News, says Swinamer was in conflict at a July 2013 council meeting when he voted in favour of continuing negotiations with Windsor Fire. The report says he should have known his son-in-law had an "indirect pecuniary interest" in what was being discussed as the fire chief's salary was funded, in part, by West Hants. 

Swinamer declined interview requests Tuesday, but does have his defenders on council.

"He only got one charge of conflict of interest," says Coun. Mike Cambell. "You're not going to put the guy behind bars and put him in jail. He might have made a mistake, he's sorry he did it. But I feel that he's certainly a good man."

Still, it all adds to what's been a difficult year for West Hants.

The former chief administrator, Cheryl Chislett, resigned last year after the municipality says it found irregularities in its financial records. Last week the 55-year-old was charged with fraud.

And the warden himself is still smarting from a December court ruling by Justice Gregory Warner that found he was not in conflict of interest involving a municipal land deal, but chastised Dauphinee and council of the time for approving a half million dollar property purchase without an appraisal or transparency.

Dauphinee is still unhappy with the judge's comments and says he has filed a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council, although he acknowledges he doesn't believe much will come from it.

The warden also says the criticism facing council on a range of issues is unfair.

"This has been turned into a circus. There's nothing that we can do that's right … and we've done a lot of good things," Dauphinee says.