It was almost a month ago exactly that we took note in this space of the many perils of running for public office. Mayor Perry McNeill had made the mistake of publishing a list of his supporters, apparently without checking to make absolutely sure that everyone on it had agreed to be there. A few hadn’t, and asked that their names be removed.

Oops.

Now two more candidates have hit potholes in the road to victory, both of them resulting from missing what might fairly be construed as important meetings of public bodies on which they serve.

Mark Burroughs, one of McNeill’s opponents in the race for mayor and a member of the Denton County Trans­por­ta­tion Authority’s board, missed a meeting Thursday at which the board approved its environmental impact statement for a planned commuter rail project.

Earlier in the week, Rudy Moreno, a City Council candidate and member of the Denton Housing Authority board, had skipped an importing board meeting at which it discussed — and might well have voted on — the fate of Heritage Oaks Apartments, a complex for low-income older residents.

Both candidates were asked about their respective absences Thursday at a candidates’ forum. Burroughs said he had a “conflict” in Fort Worth at the time that the DCTA board met, and let it go at that.

Moreno gave a more detailed explanation, but he might have done better by following Burroughs’ example.

Moreno said he had previously scheduled a gathering with campaign supporters for last Tuesday, and hadn’t realized the Heritage Oaks matter would be discussed at the Housing Authority board meeting, scheduled for the same time. He didn’t think the issue “would come up so quickly,” he said.

As it turned out, DHA board chairman Calvin Evans had told members back in March that the matter would likely come up for a vote in April; the clear implication was that Moreno simply forgot, or worse, that he wanted to duck a controversial vote.

Moreno got lucky; the DHA board delayed its vote on whether to renew a federal housing aid contract for Heritage Oaks.

The two candidates’ absenteeism prompted a question at the forum about whether they might consider resigning from their respective boards so that they could run “unhampered” for those two posts on the City Council. Both men said they would resign only if they won on May 10.

That’s a reasonable response, we suppose, but reasonable voters can disagree with it, and both Burroughs and Moreno may have lost some needed traction in their stretch drives for election.