It was anything but a warm welcome back for Nancy Branscombe at city hall Tuesday night.

The Ward 6 councillor was taken to task for missing a rash of recent committee meetings.

"Councillor Branscombe, you haven't been here for four or five weeks," fired an angry Mayor Joe Fontana Tuesday evening.

Branscombe found herself in the hot seat, a seat the mayor repeatedly pointed out she hasn't been in very often lately.

"She wasn't at the meeting and therefore didn't have the benefit of the hour-and-a-half discussion," says Fontana.

But is the mayor's very public criticism fair?

Some fact checking shows that Brancombe's attendance at committee meetings has varied widely this year.

She attended 10 of 16 planning meetings, an attendance rate of 62.5 per cent.

At Corporate Services meetings her attendance is 11 out of 17 or 65 per cent.

She has missed just one of three Audit Committee meetings and she has an 82 per cent attendance record at council meetings.

"Obviously you try to make as many of these meetings as you can, you have family and other obligations and that's all it was," says Branscombe.

A health issue kept her away for two weeks in April and a family trip to China forced her to miss meetings in May and June.

Councillor Stephen Orser, who recently had his own attendance problems at the Middlesex-London Health Unit, says politicians need to be held accountable.

"This is the problem, we need to change the rules at city hall so that attendance is a must and if you don't attend you don't get paid," says Orser.

Orser has also criticized Branscombe's intention to take a leave of absence to run as a candidate in London North Centre if a provincial election is called.

"You can't ride two horses. You can't be a councillor and a candidate in an election," says Orser.

"I do believe I carry my share of the workload and that's really all I have to say about it," says Branscombe.