Denver Mayor Michael Hancock urged residents to stay home and avoid outside contact for Thanksgiving…even as he boarded a flight to spend the holiday with his family in Mississippi.

Before leaving Hancock sent a message to city employees:

In an email to city staff on Nov. 18, Hancock wrote, “as the holidays approach, we all long to be with our families in person, but with the continued rise in cases, I’m urging you to refrain from travel this Thanksgiving holiday. For my family that means cancelling our traditional gathering of our extended family.”

In the email, Hancock also said anyone who travels out of state should quarantine for 14 days and that employees who can’t work from home will need to use their paid time off for the leave.

When Hancock’s travel plans were discovered, he issued a defensive apology saying he was sorry “to the residents of Denver who see my decision as conflicting with the guidance to stay at home for all but essential travel.”

“I made my decision as a husband and father,” Hancock wrote in a Twitter post, “and for those who are angry and disappointed, I humbly ask you to forgive decisions that are borne of my heart and not my head.”

Which is another way of saying his plans were more important than everyone else’s, he was not wrong to make such a choice and so, sorry, not sorry.

Image Credit:By Cellofellow (Gadsden_flag.svg) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons