Shameful.

That’s the only word we can come up with after seeing another political altercation happening in our area.

Just more than a year after a scuffle briefly interrupted an Alpena Public Schools Board of Education forum, an APS school board candidate, George Pena, was apparently filmed getting into an altercation with an Alpena man, John LaCross, at Mich-e-ke-wis Park recently.

In the video, which doesn’t show all that happened before the incident, Pena is seen placing his hands and the metal legs of a yard sign on LaCross’s neck area.

LaCross told The News he just wanted to ask if Pena and his associates had permission from Alpena to hand out political signs at the park and Pena became physical upon questioning. A witness told The News (and police) that LaCross was the first to get physical, shoving Pena.

Police are investigating the incident and we hope they get to the bottom of exactly what happened and the appropriate person or persons get prosecuted.

But it’s shameful it came to this.

Politics is supposed to be civil. Our political system exists to find mature, civil ways to settle disagreements and disputes through deliberation and legislation, not by laying hands on one another.

No matter who’s to blame, we hope this is a fluke — like we hoped last year’s board forum scuffle was a fluke — that won’t repeat itself.