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Pictou County
deputy sheriff
Morgan Elliott
(not exactly
as illustrated).
FRANKLAND EMPLOYEE
OF THE WEEK
BY A. LITTLE-NAPP
IN WHAT COULD BE A FRANKLAND FIRST, A
$55,000/YEAR PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
EMPLOYEE READILY CONFESSED TO ME THAT HE
SOMETIMES FALLS ASLEEP ON THE JOB.
Pictou County deputy sheriff Morgan Fritz
Elliott, 28ish, is a two-year veteran of Sheriff
Services. He says it happens.
“I dunno... I guess everyone does. Sometimes
court’s boring. I guess like anybody sometimes you
just nod off,” he explains, adding, “I’m not a lawyer,
I don’t always understand what’s going on”.
When it happens, he says it’s time to “tap out”
and bring in another sheriff for relief.
Truro native Morgan, whose uncle David Horner
is the province’s $106,877.69/year executive director
of corrections, also admitted to me that he
needs relief in other areas these days. Like driving,
for instance.
Last April, Morgan pleaded guilty to a single count
of impaired driving, garnering fines totalling $1,380
and a one year driving suspension.
“I’ve missed all the OT,” Morgan says, explaining
that there’s no driving prisoners back and forth
after hours for him these days.
He says he feared losing his job over the charge,
which he terms an “isolated thing”.
When I initially asked newly minted Justice Dept.
spokesthingy Bruce Nunn whether sheriffs working
in Nova Scotia require a valid driver’s licence,
he answered simply, via email, “Yes.”
When I asked about Morgan’s situation, it took him
nearly 20 hours to respond: “The Department of
A presumably
very awake
Morgan Elliott
prepares to ride
down a ski jump
on his bike in
Alberta back in
2007.
Justice does not authorize any sheriff’s officers to
drive a vehicle in the course of their duties without a
valid driver’s licence.”
He didn’t budge after I pressed him on his apparent
contradiction, eventually closing the book on the matter,
deeming my question to have been “asked and
answered.”
As far as the optics of Morgan’s situation — an
apparently less-than-model employee with a relative
who happens to be a powerful civil servant — Bruce
refused comment, deeming it “private personnel information.”
Morgan’s Uncle David, a former provincial director
of Sheriff Services, refused to get on the line with
me when I called his office, forcing me to dictate my
question to his secretary, who referred me back to
spokesthingy Bruce.
As for Morgan, who is featured in a video on Frank’s
youtube channel (www.youtube.comAtlantic
FrankMag) riding a BMX bike down a ski-jump into a
lake, he says his uncle never pulled any strings for
him.
“He can’t,” says Morgan, adding, “He’d lose his job.”
One former co-worker of Morgan’s “can’t imagine”
that anyone else would be allowed to stay on.
“But then, Sheriff Services has always been its
own little world.”
You’ll likely remember that former Pictou County
head sheriff Doug MacKeen survived countless
complaints about showing up at work with liquor on
his breath, among other things, until he ultimately
parted ways with Sheriff Services in October of
2009.
andrew@atlanticfrank.ca
HERE ARE A COUPLE
OF WORDS FOR YA ...
ONE HAS ONE ‘F’ AND
THE OTHER HAS TWO ‘FS’
BRUCE “MR. NOVA SCOTIA KNOW-
IT-ALL” NUNN COMES BY HIS
NICKNAME HONESTLY.
For instance, when you fire off a
simple question via email to the
$68,412.49/year government mouthpiece,
you might expect to have your
spelling corrected. Bruce, retired
broadcaster Jim’s little brother, pulled
that one on my goodself the other day.
“With the greatest respect, I believe
licence requires a ‘c’ in that instance,
rather than an ‘s’.”
Here at Frank, we’ve long held that
it’s not good form to correct another’s
spelling mistakes, mostly because we
all make them. Some more than others.
My infamous “Chiu Says Caio” cover
story (Frank 542) comes immediately
to mind.
Sure enough, it wasn’t two emails
later when the Nimrod Nimbus-published
author made an uh-oh of his
own. I wish I could tell you I didn’t stoop
to his level.
“With all due respect, ‘sheriff’ is customarily
spelled with one ‘r’ and two
‘f’s, not the other way around,” I wrote.
Bruce, to his credit, took it all in stride,
but called his mistake a “typo.” In my
mind, a “typo” occurs when you know
how to spell a word but accidentally
hit a wrong key. I can’t see how doubling
a letter in the middle of a word
and then leaving off a letter at the end
could be deemed a typo. Two typos,
maybe. Something tells me Bruce simply
didn’t feel like changing his name to
“Mr. Nova Scotia Knows-Most-
Things”.
Doesn’t roll off the tongue at all.
DECEMBER 7, 2010 ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK 13