Penticton Mayor John Vassilaki wasted no time at Tuesday's special council meeting publicly apologizing to "Ms. Wilson", a senior whose $420,000 home was sold at auction for $150,000 to pay a late tax bill totaling $10,000.
During the apology, Mayor John Vassilaki reiterated the cities position that much of the information provided to the ombudsperson by the city of Penticton was not included in his report. He also said the city was following the process laid out by the province, and the whole event happened before the current council was in place.
Mayor Vassilaki hoped that now the anger directed toward council over this issue would cool.
Immediately after the apology, the Mayor made a motion to accept the Ombudsperson's recommendation to reimburse Ms. Wilson 140,922.99.
The Mayor then opened the floor for debate. The general tone of the discussion was the City of Penticton didn't break any laws, that the process in place was followed, but now compassion was the way forward.
The motion to reimburse Ms Wilson passed 5 to 1, only Councilor Watt voting no, saying in part the taxpayer shouldn't be on the hook for this error.
You can watch the council meeting here https://www.penticton.ca/city-hall/city-council/council-meetings
You can read previous stories ExNews.net wrote on this issue here