Frisky firefighters won’t face friction

Supreme court judge says she can’t grant city hall ‘release’

The B.C. Supreme Court will not review a Labour Relations Board decision that allowed a Vernon firefighter who had sex in the interim fire chief’s office to keep his job.

City officials say they’re disappointed the court has declined to involve itself in the long-running saga involving firefighter Brent Bond.

“The city will continue to set high standards of service, ethics, integrity and honesty for its employees,” Vernon city manager Will Pearce said. “I believe our taxpayers would expect nothing less.”

In a ruling released this week, B.C. Supreme

Court Judge Elizabeth McDonald said a judicial review of the LRB’s decision could occur only if she determined the board had acted in a “patently unreasonable” manner, a standard she said had not been met in this case.

“I decline to grant the City the relief it seeks because I do not find the (LRB’s) Reconsideration Decision was patently unreasonable on any ground alleged,” McDonald wrote.

Bond and dispatcher Cara-Leigh Manahan were caught on a surveillance camera in December 2017 having sex in interim chief David Lind’s office. Bond and Manahan were fired the next day.

The firefighters union grieved the firing as excessive discipline. The city countered that “having sex in an open manner, with a subordinate, while on duty in the firehall, must be grounds for termination.”

In December 2019, an LRB panel ruled 2-1 that Bond’s dismissal was “excessive in all the circumstances.” The city then sought the judicial review of the LRB ruling.

Bond remains on the staff of the Vernon Fire Department. Manahan is no longer employed by the city as the Vernon dispatchers’ positions were contracted out.

“The conduct of these two individuals should not detract from the professionalism and integrity of the many proud employees of the city,” Pearce said in the release.