So many City of Bell residents showed up to Monday night's city council meeting to express their anger over the high salary scandal, the meeting had to be postponed until next week.So far the council has delayed taking any real action, and that just ticked everybody off all the more. The video from the meetings looked like a Democrat town hall meeting.
According to witnesses in the meeting, there was chaos in Bell City Hall as residents packed the floor and tried to make public comment to the mayor and council members.
Earlier Monday, the vice mayor of Bell said Monday that the city's highly paid top administrator will resign or be fired in the wake of an L.A. Times report that he and other top officials are among the highest-paid municipal executives in the nation.
Teresa Jacobo said she expected city Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo to lose his job at Monday's council meeting.
Just how out-of-control are things in Bell? Take a look at these numbers:
Councilman Lorenzo Velez, who was appointed to the council in the working-class city in October, also said he received only $310.62 every two weeks for his work as a councilman -- far less than the $100,000 his colleagues collected annually.It's apparent that the city government in Bell has been a self-serving clique that did pretty much whatever it wanted at the expense of taxpayers. However, the taxpayers have awakened after local media reported the numbers and there's going to be some serious housecleaning in that town.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is investigating the council salaries. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, the D.A.'s office reported.
Last week, the Times reported that Bell, one of the poorest cities in L.A. County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager.
Bell's Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo gets an annual salary of $787,637 -- nearly twice the salary of President Obama.
Police Chief Randy Adams makes $457,000 a year -- about 50-percent more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and more than double New York City's police commissioner.
Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers and more than the chief executive for Los Angeles County.
Rizzo's contract calls for 12-percent raises each July, the same as his top deputy, according to documents obtained under the California Public Records Act.
Rizzo, who has run Bell's day-to-day civic affairs since 1993, was unapologetic about his salary -- which is nearly twice as much as President Obama's reported salary of $400,000 a year.
"If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business," he told KTLA partner, The Los Angeles Times.
"I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done."
Spaccia agreed, adding: "I would have to argue you get what you pay for."
Even the city's mayor is defending the salaries, saying the community credits Rizzo for the city's success.
Bell has less than 40,000 residents. Its per capita income is about half that for the U.S.
By comparison, Manhattan Beach, a far wealthier city with about 7,000 fewer people, paid its most recent city manager $257,484 a year.
The city manager of Long Beach, with a population close to 500,000, earns $235,000 annually.
The grossly overpaid city manager boasts that he could make that much money in private industry. I think the taxpayers will give him an opportunity to prove it.
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The L.A.Times story begs other questions; namely 1)"How long has such overpayment been going?" and 2)"Why couldn't Bell voters see that earlier?"
The answer to both lies partly in accounting standards for local government. City financials only have to answer one question; Did they overspend the budget or not? They don't identify waste from overtime or vehicles or postage or most cost categories that assess performance. They need reform for transparency.
Moreover, annual reports and budgets should be required to be shared with local public libraries.
The problem in Bell and other southeast area cities is the population is comprised of many immigrant families who, until the recent Arizona law, were simply not interested in politics. Suddenly policy directly affects them and they realize they need to get involved.
The historically low voter turn out in Bell and other surrounding cities is interesting. Why are immigrant families so reluctant to register and get involved?
Should those who don't participate be allowed to protest? The best form of protest is to vote the people you are protesting against out of office.
The City of Bell has, for years, been very generous with free food and other items for poor families on a monthly basis. The City's parks are some of the best in the Country. The streets are cleaned nightly and the streets are safe.
(Bell has had a very successful no overnight parking policy for years).
Bell has recently taken over many responsibilities in running the failed City of Maywood.
Maywood paid their officials a pittance. The salaries in Bell are high, but it is one of the best run cities in the country, despite the fact that the majority of its citizens have not participated in making it so.
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