This is Leadership? - Part 2

On Thursday I posted about Commissioner O'Leary's surprise verbal attack on fellow Board of Education Commissioner and Democratic candidate Pat Hayes in the Wednesday Republican-American. It seems that, after reading Wednesday's paper Commissioner O'Leary realized that he made a rather large mistake, and issued an apology to Commissioner Hayes, both personally and in writing. While I admire Commissioner O'Leary's willingness to admit he made a mistake and apologize for it, unfortunately I felt his apology left a lot to be desired.

Primarily I found it rather distasteful that O'Leary felt it necessary to make his apology as public an affair as he made his excoriation of Commissioner Hayes just three days earlier. As I've mentioned before, I don't feel it is appropriate for any group, campaign, or similar organization to air all of its personal squabbles in public. Some may disagree with me, but even Commissioner Hayes was disappointed in the public nature of Wednesday's events.

From Friday's Republican-American:

"I thought this would be a personal thing, not part of the campaign," Hayes said.

The other aspect of Commissioner O'Leary's apology that I found lacking was his explanation of why he said what he said. In his apology he claims that he mis-spoke due to the "frustration" he had been enduring as a result of the "ugly campaign". I find it extremely difficult to consider a statement as blunt as "Pat Hayes? Can't stand him." something that you could mis-speak.

Furthermore, if you're frustrated at the personal bickering between Commissioners, as Commissioner O'Leary claims to be in his apology, then why not say "I can't stand those meetings," instead of singling out the Board President.

While I understand that emotions can sometimes get the best of people, it's different when you're talking specifically about an individual. I remember when I was on the Charter Revision Commission back in 2010, and one of my Thursday night posts from Twitter wound up in print the following Monday. It was embarrassing for me to see something that I wrote in frustration printed in the paper, but I also did not single any individual member of the Commission as the target of my anger.

All in all, I'm glad to see that Commissioner O'Leary apologized, but I feel that his apparent penchant for speaking without considering the consequences of his words leaves serious questions regarding his ability to lead the City of Waterbury.