Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo MLA Mike Allen says he will not resign from the legislature.
He says when it comes to resigning he’ll leave that up to his constituents.
“It’s a matter of determining whether or not I can be effective and still represent the community as an independent MLA in the legislature,” he said.
“I do know that whichever way it goes, whether I’m sitting in the legislature as an independent or not, this is the community I love, and I will continue to advance the needs in any way I can.”
He says he’s seen many comments on social media, but says there’s lots of other people he’d like to speak with as well.
“I have a number of key stakeholders in the community that I’ve already spoken to, there are others that I still have to reach out to, many of my friends and supporters,” he said.
“Certainly my office will be able to take call from anyone who would like to meet with me.”
Allen says he doesn’t want to rush into a by-election that would be costly.
“It could potentially take up to 6 months for that by-election to be called, I think that there’s some valuable time that would be lost there,” he said.
“In this case, this is my way of not running away from the situation, but to face it and take responsibility.”
He was formally charged Friday of solicitation of prostitution and is scheduled to appear in St. Paul court September 30th.
Allen said he’s planning on making a decision either way by the time the government resumes sitting on October 28th.
AUDIO: Press Conference
[audio:http://pmd.country933.com/audio/ferne-news/mike-allen-presser.mp3]AUDIO: Media Scrum
[audio:http://pmd.country933.com/audio/ferne-news/mikeallen-mediascrum.mp3]July 22, 2013
