An e-mail SNAFU has White Rock Coun. Stewart Peddemors apologizing for spam he sent to 3,000 people.
Peddemors, an aspiring realtor, claims he mistakenly sent a promotional e-mail to his entire contact list Tuesday, including hundreds of White Rock residents and businesses.
“I feel bad – people don’t like getting spam,” Peddemors said.
He claims he only meant to send the message to clients and has since deleted the addresses of 15 people who complained to the city.
The e-mail wasn’t intended to solicit clients, he said.
“It’s informational and, if anything, it’s a benefit.”
One Peninsula resident feels Peddemors abused information gathered as a councillor for personal gain as a realtor.
Joan Rawlyck said she e-mailed Peddemors a question about the Bosa development a year ago, and was surprised to see a promotional e-mail from him in her in-box last fall.
“I was shocked. It’s not right that a councillor I send an e-mail to would use it to sell me real estate,” said Rawlyck, who now lives in South Surrey.
Rawlyck said she asked Peddemors to take her off his last fall. She received a second message from him this week.
“Once was kind of surprising – twice shame on you,” Rawlyck said.
Peddemors said he didn’t know why Rawlyck got the e-mails, adding some residents were on his contact list as members of White Rock Ratepayers Association, which he joined.
WRRA president Gordon Hammond said at least two members received the message from Peddemors – one has asked to be taken off Peddemors’ list.
“I’m assured this was an accident and it won’t occur again,” city manager Peggy Clark said.
“Obviously, if it continued, this is something we might like to investigate.”
Ken MacKenzie of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board wouldn’t comment.
According to B.C.’s Community Charter, which governs municipalities, councillors cannot use any information they received as a councillor for their own financial gain if the information is not available to the public.