Your news this week: Training cages at fire centre - 2 I hear that train a comin’ - 7 From the files: Unbeaten season - 9 OPINION: Messin’ with Texas - 4
Proud to be an Independent CANADIAN Publication
FREE
Vol. 16, No. 10, Wednesday, February 3, 2021 www.LamontLeader.com
Nickerson guilty of manslaughter Chipman man acquitted of second degree murder charges in double killing BY JOHN MATHER A Chipman man was acquitted of second degree murder charges in the shooting deaths of two neighbours in Chipman in 2017. Ray Nickerson was instead found
guilty of manslaughter in the death of Jason Williams, and then not guilty in the death of Terrance Sutton by the jury Jan. 27 in an Edmonton courtroom. Facing two charges of second degree murder, Nickerson’s lawyer Akram
Attia argued his client had shot the men in self defence. Justice Eric Macklin allowed Nickerson to remain on bail pending sentencing after Attia had reported to court his client had been under condi-
tions for four years with no breaches. Attia further added he will argue against the mandatory four-year minimum sentence for manslaughter. Sentencing is scheduled for April 20.
Fire training centre a boost for Lamont County BY JOHN MATHER After nearly five years of construction by volunteer labour, the Lamont Fire Department training centre is just about ready to become operational. Regional Fire Chief Shayne Milliken updated Lamont Council on Jan. 26 on the status of the long-running project, while explaining how the last $100,000 budgeted will be used to complete the centre. Located at the Chipman Public Works yard, the centre has several modules which will not only save the County in training of fire members, but it will also be able to be rented out to other first response agencies for training such as RCMP, and industrial first responders. Milliken told council that there were a few problems in the area which had to be overcome prior to going fully operational. He said the project began with placing 13 C-cans at the works yard. “We began putting the C-cans into the final positions, but things got held up by the Bruderheim wildfires of 2108,” he said. He added during 2018 the County had acquired a couple of portable buildings which were designated to be used as classrooms and so the planning got spread between working on the portable structures and the C-can
A total of 13 C-cans have been built to form the main centrepiece of the Lamont County fire departments’ new fire training centre at the public works yard near Chipman. Fire chief Shayne Milliken is excited about the possibilities of the centre which is nearing completion after nearly six years of development. structure resulting in less work getting done. He said they also acquired a washroom and shower facility which was added at the site. He said work has been concentrated on classroom and shower trailers and they are now just about ready for use by emergency services and for other County departments who may wish to use them since there is an area in one of the portables which can be used as a
small boardroom/meeting room. This year, he said priority will more be back to the live fire training facility which is the C-can structure. Using the budgeted $100,000 he said there were three components to the project. “The first is to stabilize the ground around the facility,” he said. “The second is to make the facility accessible and the third is to make the facility useable.”
He said the challenge now was getting to the site. The ground is wet around the structure, but he told council he had had conversations with public works that this work could be done to solve the issue. He added some areas around the structure would have to have concrete or asphalt pads because of the amount of water that would be used during training sessions. MORE PAGE 2