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The posts have been deleted, but a repentant Meehan later posted an apology on the Riverside South Community Association Facebook page, saying she felt harassed and realized that she “responded in a way that was overly aggressive.

“I am going to have to grow a thicker skin,” she said.

Photo by Darren Brown / Ottawa Citizen

In an interview Tuesday, a tearful Meehan acknowledged that as a political neophyte, she made a mistake, but she said she has learned from it. She pledged to move on and not to engage on social media with those who are “sniping from the shadows.”

“I fell into a big trap. I should never have responded at all to those people. I used the wrong language. I should have said ‘Meet me in person,'” said Meehan. “I have always been able to figure things out if I sit down and talk to people.”

Bruce Lindsay, president of the Riverside South Community Association, says there has been a lot of chatter about the exchange, but he is willing to give Meehan the benefit of the doubt.

“She shouldn’t have said what she said. She’s someone starting out in political life. It’s a one-off, I hope.”

Meehan is, in fact, known as one of the nicest people in the city, a mainstay of community events for almost three decades, from fundraisers to the Santa Claus parade. And she wears her heart on her sleeve. Meehan wiped tears from her eyes on-air the night her co-anchor, Max Keeping, retired.

The low points in her life have been just as public. In January 2012, the body of her husband, Greg Etue, was found in a parked van about two hours west of Ottawa two weeks after he was reported missing. Etue had multiple sclerosis and had been battling cancer for two years. Condolences came from people who had never even met the couple.