It was business as usual Monday night at Port Coquitlam city council, except for one glaring absence.
Mayor Scott Young was a no show at the first meeting to be held since he was given a one-year conditional sentence for assaulting his former girlfriend after she broke up with him last year.
His absence from the last council meeting before the summer break, did not go down well with some of his constituents, who showed up expecting Young to do the same.
"Anyone with any integrity would have been here tonight,'' a constituent named Dave told CTV.
The constituents who attended the meeting, wanted to speak with their political representative, following his sentencing last Friday.
"He would have known that people would have come out to ask questions of him - and it's regrettable that he didn't live up to his responsibility to be here and he's now off for the summer," Dave said.
Young will spend the summer serving part of his one-year conditional sentence for assaulting his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends in April 2007. Part of the mayor's drunken rage that night was caught on tape when Coleen Preston dialed 9-1-1.
Young now has a criminal record. But there's nothing stopping him from holding office, or skipping out on a meeting.
Meanwhile, it isn't known yet whether Young will run for office again in November. By contrast, Councillor Greg Moore has made up his mind.
"Yes I have decided to run for mayor - not necessarily this specific incident, but this has definitely pushed me in that direction,'' he said.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Reshmi Nair.
