Nathan Black, the petition drive manager for Envision Edmonton's summer campaign and a former volunteer from David Dorward's camp, apologizes to Edmontonians who were offended by what he dismisses as a prank.

Black admits he pretended to be a reporter when he called a rival lobby group and a city councillor late last month, but says he did not use the information to write a highly-contested blog called darrensbigscoop.

The online article, which was posted on October 7th, accused Stephen Mandel of pushing for the closure of the City Centre Airport to make land available for his friends in the development business.

It also quoted Yes! for Edmonton organizer Sid Hanson as saying the mayor was the driving force behind the citizens group, which supports shutting down the runways.

"I did the interview. I told dozens of people in graphic detail how the conversation with Hanson went," said Black.

The lobbyist says he posed as a journalist because he was "very suspicious" of who was behind the group and believed it was the only way he could get an honest answer.

"I did this on my own because I didn't think this whole Yes! for Edmonton thing smelt right and no one else was asking the questions," said Black.

He tells CTV he paid $39 to set up a fake phone number with a U.S. area code and told Hanson his name was Darren Holmes. He says the whole endeavour was meant to be a joke.

"I didn't tell the guy I was from any legitimate media outlet. I told the guy I was from the Seattle Hill Times," said Black.

"If I'm going to prank the guy, I'm going to prank the guy."

Jim Lightbody, a political scientist who specializes in municipal elections, dismisses that sell and calls the online venture dirty politics.

"Should be clear this is not a prank, this was a vicious attack on the incumbent mayor," he said.

"There are ropes around the ring and the kind of behaviour that this despicable character put into his blog website is outside of the framework."

Black also admits he called Amarjeet Sohi in a conversation the Councillor describes as "abusive" and "forceful."

"Someone had called me and said that [Sohi] was involved in some kind of scheme and as of a result of that he voted for the closure of the airport," said Black.

"I put a question to him involving issuing of contracts and when he answered the question… It was abundantly clear that the guy is on the up and up and that he's legit and that it was just a vicious rumour…and I just terminated the conversation."

He says he would "apologize in a New York minute" to the politician.

Sohi also went on record Saturday asking for an apology for all of Edmonton.

When asked about this, Black would only field the question hypothetically, and responded in third person:

"If Edmontonians were offended by the type of pranks that are taking place on both side of this airport issue…It's an emotional issue and things got out of hand…He's very, very sorry if anyone's been offended."

Both Mandel and the Seattle Times have say they are considering legal action over the blog.

Black insists he is not the writer, but says he wants to find out who is.

"I'll continue to try to make inquiries into who did do the blog and I'm going to do everything I can to encourage them to get them to step up and say that they did the blog and give the reasons they did the blog," he said.

With Files from Kevin Armstrong