We received a comment in response to our Saturday post in which we quoted a 2000 California First Amendment Coalition press release regarding the City of Claremont's Black Hole Award. The release included some choice quotes from Karen Rosenthal, Claremont's mayor at the time.
As one reason for the award, the CFAC piece cited Claremont's proposal to station a "mental health professional" at City Council meetings to evaluate the potential dangers presented by speakers during public comment. The professional would have provided the City grounds to have offending speakers removed from the council chambers.
In case you've forgotten, the author of the staff report for that proposal was former Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, who is chair-elect to the Claremont Chamber of Commerce board and who ran unsuccessfully for council in 2009.
Our reader wrote:
Date: Sat, March 26, 2011 5:28:47 PM
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: crazy
"...its short-lived proposal to have mental health professionals standing by to assess the threat level posed by citizen speakers at public meetings..."
My guess is they dropped the proposal to have mental health professionals at city council meetings because the mental health professionals would have been able to witness the behavior of the city council members. "Yes, I was noticing the unstable person at the front of the room who keeps sighing loudly and rolling her eyes when other people speak. Have your officer keep a close eye on that one -- she covers about thirty pages in the DSM-IV."
(Pause)
"Also, about the man on the side of the dais who keeps turning beet red and screaming threats at people..."
At the end of the note, the reader alluded to Bridget Healy's former boss in Claremont and in Indio. Here we see him in all his red-faced glory as he does self-inflicted damage to his reputation:
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