For a little while, Bobby Sigman’s candidacy for mayor brought a bit of levity to what otherwise might have been a fairly routine small-town political campaign. After all, how often do you have a candidate who openly admits to having one DUI charge in his past, but then claims to have simply forgotten that there was a second one?

But the fun factor didn’t last long, and now Sigman’s open disdain for the people of Covington has turned an important election into a sad commentary on his personal character and his lack of respect for the city and its residents.

For a brief shining moment, it looked like Sigman was going to do the right thing. Having been caught earlier this month paying someone to steal his opponent’s political signs — a fact he admitted — Sigman then announced he would remove himself from the mayoral campaign.

But some folks just can’t make themselves behave, and Sigman now has done an about face, saying he will continue to be a candidate after all.

That’s too bad.

The election of a new mayor for Covington is an important event. The city has many challenges it must face in the immediate future, and the next mayor will set the tone for much of what needs to happen. The timing for the city is crucial, given the pending departure of the city manager and a current lack of stability on the city council. Not surprisingly, we don’t see Sigman as the solution for any sort of stability problem.

In announcing his run for mayor, Sigman bemoaned the fact that new businesses were not locating in the city. You have to wonder how attractive Covington would be to any new entity if it had as mayor someone who had repeatedly shown himself to be devoid of personal integrity.

But Sigman clearly doesn’t care much about the needs of the city or its people. Given a chance to do the honorable thing and bow out of the race with some semblance of decorum, he has instead chosen to allow his ego to bask in the floodlight of harsh publicity, seemingly oblivious to the shadow his antics cast over Covington.

During an earlier interview, Sigman said he was the right candidate for the job because "I know my community." Somehow we doubt that is the case. If he thinks his community will rally behind a candidate who has embarrassed both himself and the town he hopes to lead, we think he is wrong.

At this point, we can only hope the residents of the city step forward in record numbers to show him the error of his ways. A candidate can attempt to make a mockery of the electoral process, but the voters get to have the final say, and we expect city residents won’t be laughing when they enter the voting booth.