The hearth chief and deputy chief of a Nova Scotia volunteer fireplace division have been faraway from their positions following the loss of life of a snowmobiler who was struck and killed by a fireplace truck final week.
The Municipality of Cumberland council voted Wednesday to discharge fireplace chief Jerrold Cotton and deputy chief Andrea Bishop and ban them for all times from the fireplace station in the neighborhood of Collingwood Nook, N.S. Cotton and Bishop are married.
“As soon as the onerous proof got here out on Monday about what had occurred so far as the fireplace truck placing the sufferer, then it was time for us to behave,” Mayor Rod Gilroy advised CBC Information after the packed assembly on Wednesday.
Council held a closed-door assembly Tuesday after which an emergency assembly Wednesday after Blake Nicholson, 28, was killed on Friday night time. He left behind a fiancée and a two-year-old son.
The Collingwood and District Volunteer Hearth Division was known as to assist when Nicholson crashed his snowmobile close to Poison Lake.
Greg Herrett, the municipality’s CAO, told council on Wednesday that Cotton wasn’t truthful with officers about hitting Nicholson with the fireplace truck. The RCMP concluded that Nicholson was struck and killed by the fireplace truck.
In an electronic mail to CBC Information late Wednesday, Herrett confirmed Cotton was driving the truck on the time of the incident.
Herrett additionally advised council Cotton responded to an emergency name on Monday, regardless of publicly saying he would step away from his duties.
Family and friends of Nicholson questioned why it took so lengthy for council to take away Cotton, who previously pleaded guilty to impaired driving in 2020.
Herrett advised CBC Information the municipality didn’t have the authority to take away particular person chiefs or deputy chiefs of departments previous to the enactment of the bylaw the municipality used on Wednesday.
“The one choice that was out there to the municipality to cope with a scenario like this is able to be to disband the division. Fairly excessive choice. And so with the enactment of the bylaw, we had been capable of [discharge the volunteer fire chiefs] this time round,” Herrett stated.
Herrett stated the bylaw, adopted in 2024, was in response to the fees laid in opposition to Cotton in 2020.
Herrett stated any info on Cotton’s situation on the scene with the snowmobiler will likely be for the RCMP to find out. The RCMP advised CBC Information on Monday that they didn’t give Cotton a breathalyzer check.
CBC Information has reached out to Cotton by means of the Collingwood and District Hearth Division however has not obtained a reply.
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