性视界传媒鈥檚 mayor pulled from Monday night鈥檚 council agenda a proposed amendment to the city鈥檚 Code of Conduct bylaw that, if passed, would have prevented 性视界传媒鈥檚 Ethics Commissioner from processing and investigating complaints lodged against council members between Jan. 31 until the next council is sworn in after the Oct. 15 civic election.

Nine and a half months no doubt would have made for a record election blackout period, at least in the free world. But since the meeting鈥檚 agenda was released Friday morning, Jan. 28, Mayor Doug McCallum found himself in a media pressure cooker over the matter, leading up to his extraordinary move to have the item, which would have no doubt fueled acerbic debate, scrubbed from the agenda.

READ ALSO: 性视界传媒 mayor does about-face on controversial Code of Conduct bylaw amendment

The mayor鈥檚 statement late Monday afternoon claimed 鈥渕isinformation circulating about the bylaw is unfortunate,鈥� a dubious protestation considering he could have responded to media requests for comment but did not. He said the goal of bringing this bylaw forward for reconsideration was to 鈥渟trengthen the bylaw to ensure the Office of the Ethics Commissioner is not used for partisan purposes during the election period.鈥�

By shutting it down for at least nine and a half months?

People might suspect there are some matters keeping some politicians awake at night that led to the proposed amendment landing on the council鈥檚 agenda in the first place. At least that鈥檚 what appears to have happened here, and as they say, in politics perception is everything.

The mayor clearly has some air to clear here, some explaining to do, lest voters鈥� imaginations are left to fill in the vacuum that this situation has created.

鈥� Now-Leader

edit@surreynowleader.com
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