Rich Coleman defends his comments in the Surrey casino decision

The Deputy Premier is also finally talking after his scathing criticism of Surrey city council and then abrupt turn around over the South Surrey casino decision.
 
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts blasted Rich Coleman in an open letter for his comments.
 
While fellow Liberal MLA Gordon Hogg said Coleman calling Surrey councillors during the casino process was inappropriate.
 
Coleman was asked if he has talked to either party since.

“I have talked to Gordie and explained that I answered questions and he accepted that and he sort of apologized for his comments to me personally with regards to Dianne no I have not that is not my role.”

Question “Do you regret what you did?”

“I did my job as a Minister and I have no regrets.”

Coleman was asked if he got a talking to, after first blasting Surrey council, then in a statement pulling an abrupt u-turn.

“All of that was my doing I think that you know the challege was for a couple of our folks who were up until two o’clock in the morning and worked months and months on it they may have said somethings out of frustration and I wanted to make sure that people understood that we weren’t going to live with that frustration.”

Coleman says it was appropriate for him to call the councillors as he knew them and they had questions for him.

“This was only a conversation about moving of a license from one area of Surrey to another you should recognize that the zoning was dione by Surrey three or four years ago and Surrey are the ones that said to the Lottery Corporation that is the only place we will accept a casino in our community and that is where we would like you to go to work and then we went through the process and they turned it down, I accept the turn down.”

Requests to confirm the apology were put in to MLA Gordon Hogg who did not return CKNW’s calls.

CKNW Vancouver News

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