Superintendents at Yarmouth jail taking over at Burnside facility

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Two people are being sprung from the correctional facility in Yarmouth but they’re not inmates, they’re the superintendents.

Superintendent Russell “Rocky” Partridge is being transferred from the Southwest Nova Scotia Correctional Facility to take over as senior superintendent of the correctional facility in Burnside, the province’s largest jail.

Sue Crosby, the deputy superintendent at the Yarmouth facility, is being transferred to the Burnside facility to assume the same position there.

The superintendent at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility is being reassigned to a position within the justice department.

A memo outlining the movement of staff is dated April 10, one week after a dangerous inmate from Burnside escaped during an unarmed April 3 escort. That inmate, Jermaine Carvery, remains at large. But Sherri Aikenhead, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, says to draw an inference that the staff changes are directly related to that incident would be inaccurate.

She claims these staff changes had been in the works for awhile.

“You’re always looking for the best staff spots for the right talent and Rocky (Partridge) is certainly going to be a positive addition to Burnside, which is undergoing many challenges,” she says, adding Partridge was part of the original Burnside planning team.

But the union representing staff in the province’s correctional facilities believes the staff shakeup and the escape are linked, and that those being moved out of Burnside are being used as scapegoats for things it says justice department brass should be accountable for.

Meanwhile, Scott Nickerson will be appointed as the new superintendent of the correctional facility in Yarmouth. Nickerson has been working for the Justice Department in the area of training, but was also a captain at the Yarmouth jail.

“So he is being promoted,” Aikenhead says.

Troy Foote will assume the deputy superintendent position. He is also a captain in Yarmouth.