Regional councillors later this week are set to extend for the second time the as-of-yet unexplained leave of absence for controversial St. Catharines Coun. Andy Petrowski.

A motion is to be brought before council Thursday night that would extend Petrowski's paid of leave of absence to Sept. 25, a week before the final council meeting prior to the Oct. 22 municipal election.

Petrowski has not been at council meetings since he took a leave of absence on Dec. 4 — his second leave of 2017. He stepped away from council three days after being asked questions by The Standard about a tweet in which he compared the hiring of a transgender minister by a U.K. church to "Sodom and Gomorrah," and has not returned since.

Under the Municipal Act, a councillor can only be absent from his or her seat for 90 days unless granted a special exemption by council. After those 90 days, council is required to fill that seat either with the runner-up from the last election or with a byelection.

However, if an election will happen within 90 days of an absence, council does not have to fill that seat.

Petrowski's leave was extended in February to May 30. If approved, this new extension would be retroactive to May 31 and end on Sept. 25. As a result, council does not have to fill the vacant St. Catharines seat.

The reason for Petrowski's absence has not been disclosed. This week's motion recommends the extension based on "communication received by human resources from Coun. Petrowski." The motion does not indicate the nature of that communication.

Petrowski, who told The Standard in January that he will not run for re-election, took his first leave of absence after he emailed from his regional account a pornographic image to about 100 people — including local politicians, municipal staff and journalists — in late May.

At the time, Petrowski said he sent the image accidentally, saying a person he has refused to identify attached the image to his email before it was sent out. Petrowski has never explained how he did not notice the photo of a naked woman sitting on a chair with her legs spread open was embedded into his email.

He returned to council a few months later, but went back on leave shortly after The Standard asked about his tweets about the transgender minister and shortly before the regional integrity commission ruled council should suspend Petrowski's pay over the porn incident.

Petrowski has courted controversy several times during this term of council. His tweets and commentary about gay marriage, Muslims and Jews outraged residents and he has been the subject of multiple integrity commissioner investigations. He left the police services board while under investigation by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission and made a failed attempt to sue most of regional council to block the release of integrity commissioner reports critical of his conduct.

He also filed as expenses, and was paid for, more than $44,000 in external legal bills for consulting a family lawyer about those integrity commissioner reports.