Michael Linder

Bell, California residents say the whole thing was a scam — the charter city measure they narrowly passed in 2005 with fewer than 400 votes cast. It promised greater autonomy over their city. It gave no warning of the “grotesque” salaries municipal leaders would soon receive. It just happened to appear on the ballot shortly after passage of a new state law limiting city officials’ wages.

Bell residents call it a story of betrayal. Their town — one of LA County’s poorest with a 17% poverty rate, 2.4 square miles and home to some 36,000 people — looted by a small cadre of elected officials who’ve sapped their treasury while taxes skyrocket and services are slashed.

But where were the watchdogs when dwindling media resources and public apathy are a recipe for municipal chicanery?

“They’re not naive people, they’re good people,” Bell resident Maria Perez told me. “They just trusted their elected officials — blindly, I hate to say.”

City Manager Robert Rizzo

What they got for taking their eyes off the ball was an annual $787,637 salary tab for City Manager Robert Rizzo (currently facing DUI charges) who lives 32 miles away in a $1.3 million home in Huntington Beach and collects twice as much salary as the president of the United States. $1.5 million if you add in the benefits and vacation time. And a police chief with a sketchy past paid $457,000. And an assistant city manager who picks up $376,288 yearly with, like Rizzo, an automatic 12% annual raise.

None of this made national news until the Los Angeles Times stumbled on the story while investigating an issue in nearby Maywood. But the Times had what the people of Bell didn’t have — clout.

Attorney Luis Carrillo tried four times, unsuccessfully, to pry Bell payroll records from the city. Bell activist Dale Walker tried too, rebuffed. “The city did not provide that information and kept the residents in the dark for all these years as to those outrageous salaries,” says Carrillo.

Not until the Times threatened to sue did Bell fork over its public documents, sparking residents’ demands for the recall or resignation of many in city government.

Rizzo, Bell Police Chief Randy Adams and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia have resigned under pressure while probes have been launched by Attorney General Jerry Brown, Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley and California state pension system CalPERS.

Update: Bell mayor Oscar Hernandez has slashed his pay to $0 and says he won’t seek reelection. Other council members have taken a voluntary 90% cut in wages yet, like Hernandez, refuse demands they resign.

Meantime, neighboring cities are distancing themselves from the smell of corruption in Bell.

Bell City Attorney Edward Lee has been dismissed the City of Downey where he served in an identical capacity. He’s been bounced from his law firm for good measure. Angela Spaccia has stepped down as Maywood’s assistant city manager after resigning from the same post in Bell.

Lessons learned? Bell’s corruption saga is is emblematic in an era of shrinking public accountability and drastic cuts in the media, reducing its ability to be an effective government watchdog. This story did not break on a blog. Bell once had a community newspaper, but it folded more than a decade ago.

Bell Councilman Lorenzo Velez, who earns a mere $8,000 yearly and who residents consider the only honest guy in city government, says as much.

“Don’t close your eyes to the everyday business of your city or municipality,” Velez told me after Thursday’s resignations. “It’s important for everybody, wherever you are, to stay aware of what’s going on in your city hall. We’re all the taxpayers and we need to hold our elected officials accountable.”

Once they learned what was going on, Bell residents reacted in a spectacular show of democracy. It was something out of a Frank Capra movie — Mr. Smith Goes to Bell — townsfolk by the hundreds, fighting a crooked political machine. Word spread in a blitz of text messages by members of BASTA (The Bell Association to Stop the Abuse) and by Twitterers including @watchcityofbell.

“The dictator Mr. Rizzo is gone,” a resident told City Council members Thursday night, “but you will continue to live in this city and you will be looked on as outcasts. You will have to look in the mirror every day and remind yourself what you have done to this city.”

Despite a large police presence and late hours for working-class citizens, the people of Bell twice last week massed on City Hall, far too many to fit into the 84-seat council chambers. They demanded municipal justice. It’s not over yet.

Bellians continue their push to slash the pensions of those they’ve booted out, more than $600,000 a year for life in Rizzo’s case. And they continue to demand the ouster, or salary reductions, of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and council members other than Velez.

KABC’s Peter Tilden and I hashed it out on his show Friday morning. The BBC picked up the story, too.

Playback Bell Officials Resign under Corruption Cloud The Peter Tilden Morning Show
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Bell’s energized reform movement is probing other questionable city practices including what they say is the nightly racial-profiling-for-profit impounding of Latinos’ cars and why Mayor Hernandez is able to sell alcohol under a city exemption at his grocery store, within yards of an elementary school, when State law prohibits the sale of cigarettes there.

Pedro Carrillo, a staunch Rizzo defender who praises the city’s parks and schools, will now serve as acting city manager. “Of course people are angry,” he told me last week, “but when you go to the street and ask about a guy [Rizzo] who spent seventeen years here and there are the things we have — you know what? Everyone should do this.”

Bell will be watching.

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