When a political columnist gets to read and write about the bizarre behavior of elected officials, including sexual harassment and socially deviant conduct, he smiles. Then he quickly realizes that the severity of the acts and the situation are more important that the humorous one-liners going through his head.

There’s nothing shocking in this matter which you probably are already tired of – nothing at all shocking to this writer. I’ve known and have been the target of the strange and anti-social behavior of the Councilmember who has just received the strongest penalty ever assessed against a City Council member in the Council’s history.

After 26 days and 104 hours of hearings by the Council Committee on Standards and Ethics investigating allegations by five separate women claiming sexual harassment and discriminatory conduct including, two federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints by female staff members, two more complaints by female members of the Council’s central staff and one complaint by a female Council Member, the City Council voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions, against Council Member Allan W. Jennings, who was found to have created a hostile work environment, to have improperly terminated an employee, and to have improperly used public resources. Only one other member of 51 joined Jennings in voting against the resolution.

His punishment included among other things: a public censure by the Council; a $5,000 fine; mandatory participation in court-certified anger management and gender, racial and harassment sensitivity training; suspension from all committee assignments; monitoring of all staff terminations.

His sorrow? None.

For those of you who have followed the strange adventures of this bizarre elected official, nothing should be a surprise. He sent Valentine cards to some male members of the City Council, he threw a chunk of metal at the back of a TV reporter, striking him, he boycotted and threatened to sue this newspaper over a mild humorous item, he took out ads in Chinese language newspapers proclaiming his love for Asian women and he has metaphorically likened himself to Jesus being crucified by his Council colleagues. The list goes on and on.

To me the whole thing is pretty clear. I’ve known and have interviewed Allan Jennings several times since he first became a candidate for City Council some six years ago. He is strange; very, very strange. A number of years ago, in discussing Jennings with me, a female reporter noted that, “he doesn’t march to the tune of his own drummer, he hears a tuba.”

As I said in the lead, one-liners and humor cry out from the computer keys, but this is all too sad. In my previous career, I served as principal of a New York City school for socially maladjusted and emotionally disturbed children – one of the old 600 schools for those of you old enough to remember. We handled the kids that were thrown out of neighborhood schools because of behavior. For the most part, they had severe emotional problems. Many were a danger to themselves and others. And although they were sent to us – expelled from their school because of behavior – they didn’t need punishment. They needed help. And others needed protection from them.