This story comes courtesy of The City Maven.
In what is likely a first for City Hall, a Los Angeles City Councilman threatened to knock out a public speaker today after the man ended his comment with “Heil, Hitler.”
The disruption came at the end of the speaker’s two minutes, most of which were spent criticizing members of the Los Angeles City Council for not listening to the public comment period.
“I’m upset. So I guess I’ll just salute you – Heil, Hitler,” he said as he left the podium.
That got an immediate response from Councilman Paul Koretz, whose father fled Nazi Germany.
“That’s a highly offensive thing,” Koretz said. “Frankly, he hasn’t disrupted the meeting yet, but I’m very tempted to go over there and clock him – and that will disrupt the meeting.”
Councilman Tom LaBonge, who was chairing the meeting at the time of the comment, told the audience he was “absolutely aghast” with the statement.
For his part, Councilman Bill Rosendahl told the audience, “As a German from German parents, who suffered through that process too, I’m appalled and outraged,” Rosendahl said.
“As a gay man, to know my people were rounded up, too, and (killed) in that Holocaust situation — that is not a light term and it’s not a funny term. It’s an outrageous and immoral term that should never be used in the United States government.”
The City Maven is a news website about Los Angeles city politics and policies. It was created by journalist Alice M. Walton in 2010 upon her graduation from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. To read more City Maven stories, click here.