This isn’t unique to Somerville, of course. Throughout the country, Americans skip over issues and facts in favor of snide comments targeting people rather than problems.

On Nov. 9, former alderman and school committee member Andrew Puglia addressed the Board of Aldermen advocating for his son-in-law Sean O’Brien, a disabled Iraq war veteran. O’Brien contends he was wrongly skipped over for a job with the city’s fire department.

This column does not concern the merits of his argument or the city’s defense. Instead, we object to the ugly mudslinging that followed Puglia’s statements.

Puglia, a former attorney, was disbarred from practicing law and convicted of embezzlement in the 1990s. However true those facts may be, they are irrelevant to the issue of hiring practices within the city’s fire department.

On local blogs, anonymous commenters dredged up Puglia’s past instead of debating the merits. In a Somerville News op-ed this week Mayor Joe Curtatone references Puglia’s decade-old legal troubles.

We ask, so what? Puglia served his debt and has paid the price of his mistakes. If his reputation is relevant to the case he makes then remember that Puglia was known as an exceptional and attentive alderman in his time on the board and was a very popular figure in this city.

Somerville can appreciate a feud as much as any community but it is in our best interest to put aside the personalities and people involved in local issues and focus on the facts.