Colwood Mayor Dave Saunders is requesting a public apology from View Royal councillor and mayoral-candidate Andrew Britton who last week told the Gazette: “We need to be proactive, so we don’t wind up broke — like Colwood.” (Read the full article here)

In an email to Britton, on which he copied the Gazette, Saunders wrote:

“Colwood has gone to great lengths to build and support our relationship with View Royal and the comments in the article are completely inexcusable!”

Britton responded with an apology, again copying the Gazette, and clarified the intent of his comment:

“When I was talking about Colwood it was in the context of the difficult time they are having. I did not fully explain that Colwood had difficulty due to the Assessments of some high profile properties such as the Rock Quarry and how they lost money because of this and it falls on the taxpayers where there is only one place municipalities get their operating funds and that is through taxes.”

But Saunders’ message back to Britton suggested the two are still far apart on the issue:

“Any statement made should be a full apology to Colwood and correction of the inaccurate information that Colwood is broke. Your wording and intent of the correction is not even remotely accurate.”

Saunders has requested a meeting with Britton to resolve their conflict.