Cr Teresa Stevenson has sent a second apology to Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, but doubts it will be good enough.
The new apology, emailed to Mr Chin on May 29, included the words "unreservedly apologise" but also repeated large passages of her first apology, Cr Stevenson told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
Her first apology was rejected by Mr Chin as "unacceptable" on May 15 and sent back to Cr Stevenson.
Yesterday, Cr Stevenson said she was yet to receive a formal reply to the second apology from Mr Chin, but had been told informally by Mr Chin the apology had been referred to "a third party" last week.
"He has informed me he has spoken to a third party and I should speak to that third party.
"The outcome of it is, I suspect, I need to rewrite the apology again," she said.
She would not name the third party, to whom she was yet to speak, or release a copy of the apology in full.
It has now been more than a month since Cr Stevenson was censured for breaching the council's code of conduct and standing orders, and asked to make an appropriate apology.
Asked last week if a second apology had been received, Mr Chin said only that he was "still working on it".
Yesterday, he confirmed the second attempt had been received, but said the "third party" had approached him "offering to help".
He also would not say who the third party was, but hoped to have the matter resolved in days, not weeks.
"She [Cr Stevenson] is still in the process of refining it. I can't let it go on for weeks. I suppose she won't either."
