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The Daily Bulletin has an article today covering the campaign claims made by Claremont City Council candidate Bridget Healy's campaign in a recent flyer.You might recall that the flyer asserted that Healy, in her job as former Claremont assistant city manager, had a big hand in the City's acquisition of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park and the Padua Hills Theatre. Those claims were contradicted by Healy's testimony in a deposition three years ago in the Palmer Canyon fire lawsuit.
We posted the flyer and Healy's deposition transcript in a post a couple days ago. As we remarked in our post, the flyer and Healy's sworn testimony are mutually exclusive. The flyer says she accomplished certain things. Her testimony, under oath, says she did not.
Today's Bulletin article, by Wes Woods II and Will Bigham, indicated Healy was still trying to process the situation. She appeared to be in crisis management mode:
Healy declined to comment on the apparent inconsistent statements when reached at her home on Thursday afternoon.
She said an attorney was going over the statements, and she would make a comment after the attorney's review.
The article also quoted Healy's campaign manager Gary Riley, who doesn't seem to have known Healy very long:
"I honestly don't know," Riley said. "I need to know more about it before I can really take a stand one way or another. Everything that I've ever known about Bridget, she's above-board, honest. I've never known her to be lowdown, underhanded, lie, cheat, steal, about anything. That's why I think she would be the perfect person to be (on the City Council)."
The other two candidates in the race, Larry Schroeder and Corey Calaycay, did not comment for the article.
As we've noted before, none of this really matters because Healy is the Claremont 400's anointed one. If this election holds true to form, Healy's name simply has to be on the ballot, and she will get the 2,300 to 2,500 votes she needs to win one of the two council seats up for grabs in next Tuesday's city election.
If you saw Wednesday's Claremont Courier, you may have noticed that all three candidates had election advertisements. Schoeder had an insert in the paper, and Calaycay had a full page ad on the Courier's back page. Healy also had a full page ad. Her ad did not mention any accomplishments or qualifications. It consisted mostly of several columns of Healy supporter names. This is how a prototypical Claremont 400 campaign works. The argument, such as it is, does not ask you to vote for Healy because she is the best qualified based on any true, verifiable evidence. Healy's ad says it all: Vote for me because these people say to.
The people supporting Healy have permanently suspended disbelief. Their choice isn't made based upon any rational framework. They are willing to overlook not only false statements but also Healy's own work history while here in Claremont for 18 years under former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard.
The 400's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the truth has been the foundation of our town's dysfunction for 30 years or more, and there is no reason to expect that to change any time soon. For many of her supporters, the belief in Healy's candidacy approaches a religious intensity and is wrapped up in the mythology they've created for Claremont. To acknowledge the truth of their very flawed candidate would require them to surrender a large portion of those beliefs, not simply in Healy, but in their entire image of our town town.
It would be asking too much of any human being to abandon their religion. So Healy as councilperson will probably be the price we pay for our very human weaknesses.
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