St. Catharines Regional Councillor Andy Petrowski will be taking a personal leave of absence following an email sent from his account that included a nude photo of a woman.
He met with Regional Chair Alan Caslin this morning, and Caslin's statement follows:
STATEMENT FROM REGIONAL CHAIR ON MEETING WITH COUNCILLOR PETROWSKI
“At my scheduled meeting with Councillor Petrowski this morning, the Councillor provided notification that he is taking a personal leave of absence.
Due to privacy legislation, the corporation cannot provide further information regarding the leave of absence.
Notwithstanding the above, the Councillor’s access to his Niagara Region email account and corporate devices has been suspended.”
The whole incident started with an email sent out by the Niagara Region on Monday updating work on St. Paul Street over the Burgoyne Bridge in St.Catharines.
At 1:22p.m St. Catharines Regional Councillor Andy Petrowski replied to that email and all 95 recipients with this message: "There must have been a sale on these multi-million dollar, taxpayer-funded, non-functional arches...guess who put these up in Ottawa? You're right if you said .... drum roll, please....'Pomerlau'...what a joke!" but attached is a picture of a nude woman.
The picture, shows a woman completely nude sitting on a chair with her legs apart.
Shortly after Petrowski sent out an apology saying "I apologize to everyone for the previous e-mail just sent...this was sent in error as a terrible message by someone who was using my iPad I thought to send a private message. I am very sorry for this unacceptable and inappropriate transmission."