In this Thursday’s committee of the whole meeting, Victoria City Councillor Jeremy Caradonna issued an apology to his colleague, Councillor Stephen Hammond after a heated discussion which took place just a few weeks ago.
During the regularly scheduled committee of the whole meeting on January 23rd, Caradonna accused Hammond of lying to the public in regards to a motion he had put forward.
The motion Hammond had brought forward was questioning if there was bias in City-paid advertising for the Crystal Pool Replacement Project referendum.
Of note, Hammond says that he is impartial and that whatever the public decides, he will support. However, Hammond’s husband, Jack Boomer, is heading up the ‘Vote No Victoria’ campaign in an attempt to sway voters to say no to the new pool.
Hammond brought a council member motion before the Victoria city council on Thursday, January 31st, which would have his colleagues vote on whether Caradonna apologized to him.
Because the motion was submitted late, it was deferred to this week’s meeting on Thursday, February 6th.
Related:
- Victoria city councillor seeks ‘sincere apology’ from colleague for calling him a liar
- Concerns of ‘blatant misinformation’ arise regarding Crystal Pool Replacement Project
When the motion came to the top of city council’s agenda, Caradonna took the opportunity to apologize for his words and for the intensity in which he spoke them.
“I am happy to apologize to Councillor Hammond and secondarily to Councillor Gardiner for the overheated rhetoric in council two weeks ago,” Caradonna stated.
“The debate became overly personal and I take responsibility for, and lament, my use of ad hominem comments, in particular the use of ‘liar,’ ‘fishy’ and other comments that were offside.”
He said that he specifically wanted to retract his comment that Hammond was a liar.
“I think it’s important that we all comport ourselves with respect and decorum, and in that debate, I fell short of my own expectations,” he continued.
“For that I apologize to the two councillors and to the body of council as a whole.”
However, he said that he still stands by his arguments that day, including that council should avoid criticizing staff, that they should maintain the democratic process for which they are bound to and that any council member who had issues with the referendum should have raised those concerns months ago.
Following Caradonna’s apology, Councillor Hammond accepted the statement as satisfactory and withdrew his council member motion asking for an apology.
“I would have preferred the apology not get into some areas of which I took to an op-ed to refute, however I believe the apology was sincere in realizing that the language went too far, clearly went too far and I found disparaging on about me and another councillor at the same time,” said Hammond.
“So I appreciate that was done and I look forward to continued better decorum in the future.”
Once the motion was withdrawn, council concluded their committee of the whole meeting and moved on to recess before their council meeting to follow.
