Port Moody Mayor Rob Vagramov started his first council meeting since his charge of sexual assault was stayed on Nov. 13 by apologizing to the city’s residents.
“I’m really sorry to the public of my hometown for this ordeal,” he said. “This really is not what I expected or wanted year one to be like.”
The stay of the charge is a component of the alternative measures program that was agreed to by special prosecutor Michael Klein and Vagramov’s lawyer, Ian Donaldson.
Vagramov, who returned to work Nov. 18 from an unpaid leave he resumed after an earlier return in September that lasted about a month, said he also regretted that decision, as it exacerbated the impact of his legal ordeal on the community and council’s work.
Vagramov said he was also wrong to characterize the conclusion of his legal problems as him being "exonerated."
“What I should have conveyed was that I was glad to be ‘relieved of’ the charge,” Vagramov said, adding that is one of the definitions in the Oxford Dictionary for "exonerated.”
“That is how I intended to use the word,” he said.
