POINT TUPPER - Home to several of the Strait area's largest heavy industries and millions of dollars in commercial tax revenue for Richmond County, this tiny community continues to be a political football between the county and the nearby Town of Port Hawkesbury in terms of which municipality's fire department should provide emergency responder duties for the community.

The behind-the-scenes wrangling finally boiled over into a heated argument at the latest meeting of Richmond Municipal Council, which saw councillors Jason MacLean, Gilbert Boucher and James Goyetche - as well as Warden Brian Marchand - at odds over council's decision to turn down the town's offer to use its department as the primary responder for emergency calls from Point Tupper.

The trouble began when MacLean attempted to add the issue to the agenda of Richmond's September 14 meeting of Committee of the Whole, only to have Boucher refuse to offer unanimous consent because "we've gone through this sixteen times already."

Later in the meeting, when MacLean attempted to gain council support for a separate issue but failed to achieve unanimous consent, he referred to Boucher's refusal to allow a follow-up discussion on fire services. That touched off an angry reaction from Goyetche, who accused MacLean of trying to embarrass councilors that agreed to give the Point Tupper fire protection contract to the Louisdale and District Volunteer Fire Department instead of paying Port Hawkesbury nearly $75,000 for the services of the town's department, an increase of nearly $25,000 from the previous year. 

"Just because we're not paying Port Hawkesbury the amount of money they wanted, that doesn't mean we're not taking care of Point Tupper," Goyetche thundered. 

After several minutes of arguing between Goyetche and MacLean, Warden Marchand remarked that MacLean "got what [he] wanted" in terms of a council discussion on the fire services issue, but also took issue with MacLean's tactics in dealing with the situation.