A council meeting in Nanaimo came to a screeching halt on Monday after a bizarre email was leaked to its members.

The confidential email was written by Nanaimo’s mayor Bill McKay.

“I found it on my windshield of my truck and I didn’t even know it was real,” said Tim McGrath, the man who brought the email to council.

McKay has verified the email was in fact real.

“You can imagine my shock and horror that this would be released to the public,” McKay said.

In the three-page letter that slams his colleagues, McKay wrote about one councillor being abused physically as a boy and how another may have mental health issues.

“It’s a legacy that the mayor will wear as a dysfunctional mayor,” Nanaimo councillor, Jim Kipp, said.

The mayor said he wrote the email in March 2015 to a group the city had hired to help him and council work together.

“She wanted to know two things, can you give me a snapshot through your lens as to who your colleagues on council are,” McKay said.

He believes the leak was an inside job.

“The fact is that there are only four people at city hall who had access to that document,” McKay said.

The scathing document leaves no councillor untouched.

“He is not a team member, but wishes to be a director, conductor, or the coach. He is a bully and does it well,” the email reads.

The mayor’s co-workers are disappointed and threatening legal action.

“It’s regrettable, it’s shameful, it’s embarrassing, it’s unfortunate that two months into our term we’re having this type of conduct,” Nanaimo councillor, Bill Bestwick, said.

Kipp stated he will be going to see a lawyer about the leaked email.

McKay is also considering contacting the RCMP for a breach under the Freedom of Information Act.

“The difference between my words and theirs is that theirs have been kept confidential. Someone at city hall has betrayed me by releasing this publicly,” McKay noted.

The leaked email follows a year filled with bickering, insults and threats.

Earlier this month councillors released a letter alleging the mayor hasn’t been open, honest and transparent while on the job. 

The council also said it launched an investigation into McKay’s spending behaviour and conduct. 

With a report from CTV Vancouver Island's Jessica Lepp