Having served on the Fountain Hills Town Council with Michael Archambault, I found his statement in last week’s Times that he is running for the town council to promote civility to be, at best, forgetful.

During Michael Archambault’s tenure on the town council, he was a major source of incivility. His actions were so bad that the council went to the unusual step of voting to censure him in 2005. To see excerpts of that meeting, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMB-qLxxwpE

Archambault was censured because, after a town council meeting, he followed the town manager into the town hall lobby and yelled at him using the “f word” and poked his finger on his chest.

And that incident was not Archambault’s first uncivil outburst. During a previous town council meeting, Archambault shouted at a citizen from the dais to silence him and Archambault also lost his temper during a town council closed session, for which he later apologized.

Even after the 2005 censure, Archambault continued to publicly lose control of his temper. On one occasion, he yelled at a town employee so rudely she ran crying from town hall. Archambault even yelled at Linda Kavanagh, before she was mayor, because he disagreed with something her legislator-husband had done at the capitol.

And in his latest reincarnation as a Planning and Zoning Commission member, Archambault has gotten himself sued for making allegedly false and defamatory statements about a local building project. The town must pay for his lawyer and taxpayers will have to pay the cost of any possible settlement or judgment.

Civility demands that voters keep Michael Archambault off the town council. The town does not need his hair-trigger temper and can’t afford his poor judgment.