West Hants votes to replace Windsor fire service with new provider

An agreement between West Hants and the Windsor Fire Department for joint fire services went up in smoke after West Hants municipal council voted this week to find its own fire service provider.

The municipality and the fire department have been embroiled in a dispute for some time over payment for the service. 

The department said the Municipality of West Hants was behind in its payments, while West Hants said the costs were excessive.

Last June, West Hants and the Windsor Fire Department agreed to find a way to settle the dispute after the fire department threatened to pull fire services and the provincial Municipal Affairs Department got involved.

However, even an independent mediator could not bring the two sides to an agreement.

A report filed by the mediator outlined a possible settlement but while West Hants agreed to the recommendations, Windsor Fire Department rejected them, Cathie Osborne, West Hants chief administrative officer, said in a news release Wednesday.

She said the fire department gave West Hants two options: A and B.

"The motion was to accept Windsor Fire Department's Option B which basically extends the June 2014 agreement for 20 months at an annual cost of $513,000," Osborne said in the release, which did not say what Option A was. 

West Hants says it will continue to fight the fire service payment amount.

Town 'disappointed'

"The Municipality believes the actual operating costs to be far less than that, and that the Windsor Fire Department has been accumulating cash funded by West Hants' ratepayers."

It has asked staff to begin the process of recovering "overpayment for fire services" and will find an alternate fire service at the end of the 20-month period, approximately sometime in February 2017.

Wednesday evening, the town of Windsor issued a release saying it was "disappointed" the two sides could not reach an agreement.

Mayor Paul Beazley said town staff would be meeting in the near future with the executive to discuss continued service and new opportunities between the town and the Windsor Fire Department.