The husband of the Democrat mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts, issued a groveling apology after screaming at a local man in a grocery store. 

Bill Scher, husband of mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, apologized to his wife's constituents at a Northampton School Committee hearing on Thursday after his outburst sent shockwaves through the town. 

'I was the weak link in our local democracy,' said Scher, a left-wing political commentator and journalist, after being introduced by his wife to make the mea culpa. 

'What did I accomplish with this? I didn’t persuade anybody. I couldn’t hear well. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t find common ground.' 

The apology to locals came after Scher was spotted exploding at school committee member Michael Stein, who has become an outspoken critic of Mayor Sciarra in the town. 

This has included Stein publishing columns in the Daily Hampshire Gazette criticizing Sciarra's handling of the school budget. 

Scher admitted that Stein's disapproval of his wife's time in office got under his skin, as he confronted Stein in a Stop & Shop on Wednesday.

The argument got so heated that a bystander had to intervene with a store employee, according to the Boston Globe. 

In his groveling apology to the school committee the day after his outburst, Scher said he sees his rant as a 'cautionary tale for others to avoid.' 

Scher works as a left-wing political commentator and is the politics editor of the Washington Monthly, and has also worked as a freelancer for Politico. 

He is reportedly known for his staunch support for his wife's political career, and has also authored the book 'Wait, Don’t Move To Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy To Win Back America.' 

Scher said he approached Stein because he wanted to make him 'adopt a different tact in his public advocacy', but said his emotions got the best of him. 

'When he responded with points I didn’t agree with, I let my emotions get the better of me. I lost my temper, and I raised my voice,' he said. 

A 77-year-old woman who witnessed the argument told the Globe that she was in the Stop & Shop when she saw two men speaking, and one was 'shouting at the other.' 

'I stayed my distance but spoke up and told the shouter that he was frightening me,' she recounted in a Facebook post about the encounter. 

'The shouter told me that ‘he can do and say what he wants’ — that it was a free country... I was frightened enough to wonder if he was a danger.' 

Scher's tantrum sparked controversy in the town, with one former city councilor sharing a Facebook meme of herself as a talking toilet paper roll to criticize Scher as 'unhinged.' 

Gwen Agna, a former school principal who recently retired as vice chair of the School Committee, told the Boston Globe that the tensions around politics and Donald Trump have filtered into everyday life in the Massachusetts suburb. 

'People are very anxious right now, and anxiety can fuel some people not acting in the ways that they might normally,' she said. 

Local man Jose Adastra added on Facebook: 'All that civility talk and you can’t stop yourself from yelling at a hardworking man at the grocery store.... Absolutely deplorable behavior and on top of it to think a pathetic apology like that would make up for it.' 

Stein also took to Facebook to recall the encounter, writing that 'Bill, a passionate defender of civility and civil discourse, menaced me in a hostile and unproductive manner.'  

At the school meeting, Scher said he was embarrassed by his behavior, and didn't want his 'inappropriate behavior to be a bad example that others emulate.'

'If there’s any saving grace to this episode, it is that my shame and regret will be a cautionary tale for others to avoid.' 

Sciarra said in a statement that she was 'sorry that this happened' after her husband's unfortunate local headline-grabbing antics. 

'I appreciate the public apology that my husband gave.'