Lantzville Coun. Bob Colclough no longer has to worry about a legal petition calling for his removal from council.
A dozen Lantzville residents who had filed a petition calling for Colclough’s removal from office due to conflict of interest have filed a notice of discontinuance in B.C Supreme Court, effectively killing their petition.
The petition, filed in November, claimed that Colclough was in conflict when he voted on motions relating to the Lantzville-Nanaimo water agreement and a Lone Tree Properties Foothills development project.
Colclough told the News Bulletin that he feels vindicated and relieved that the lawsuit, which if successful could have potentially seen him removed from office, is over. He said the accusations against him were untrue, adding he felt the petition was done to smear him and his reputation.
“It’s an attack on my integrity,” he said. “I have high ethical standards and high level of integrity and I am there to do a job and it is not for personal gain.”
Ray Farmer, one of the petitioners in the case, told the News Bulletin in an e-mailed statement that the petition was dropped because Colclough was “in contact inappropriately” with relatives of the petitioners.
“Councillor Colclough threatened to pursue individual petitioners legally depending on the outcome of the case rather than recognizing the petitioners as a single group and collectively we are unwilling to have any one petitioner financially targeted by councillor Colclough,” Farmer said in the e-mailed statement.
Farmer went on to say the group still believe Colclough “inappropriately voted on items that related to either his own property or his partnership in the development of the Lantzville Foothills” property.
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