Article content continued

The councillor, who represents a ward in the far northwest, said Monday he would personally contact the people identified in his expenses to apologize.

Morishita said he received one of those phone calls the next day. “He just said he was confused. His excuse was he did not file his expenses in a timely manner and kind of got things mixed up,” he said.

“I have to take it at face value,” he added. “He apologized for it and said he made a mistake.”

Magliocca, who’s in his mid-50s, said in an interview Friday that he can’t recall whom he actually had the meals with because “I’m old.”

“I paid it back out of my own pocket,” he said. “I paid for it and it’s done.”

He added in an email that he didn’t fill out his office expenses until December.

“I literally meet hundreds of people at these conventions,” he said. “I didn’t write down their names at the time and I tried to recall a month after based on business cards I had from FCM, but clearly I got some names wrong.”

In his Monday apology to councillors, Magliocca said, “Taxpayers expect better of me and so does this council.”

‘We are there to represent our taxpayers’

Magliocca served as council’s representative on FCM’s board of directors last year. He expensed $6,400 for the trip, about three times that of some of his colleagues, including at least $1,800 in hosting costs — which he now says have been repaid — to cover meals and drinks for himself and fellow councillors, government officials, staffers and lobbyists.