Bell, California Citizens Protest Against Corrupt City Officials Including City Manager Who Makes $787,000 a Year
Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, July 26, 2010, 6:11 AM
Bell City, one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, pays its city manager $787,000 a year.
Los Angeles Times reporter Jeff Gottleib released a list of Bell city officials and their salaries last week in a report. The citizens of Bell were outraged by this revelation and held a protest this weekend.
My Way reported:
Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators.
The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit.
They then did the same with some members of the City Council, with many marchers wearing T-shirts that read “My city is more corrupt than your city.”
“I don’t think they are taking it seriously. And we’re serious,” event organizer and longtime Bell resident Nestor Valencia, 45, told the Los Angeles Times. “They need to resign.”
The protest was organized by Bell Association to Stop the Abuse, a group founded after the Times reported that Bell’s city manager, police chief and assistant city manager were all being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, with city manager Robert Rizzo collecting a check of $787,637. All three resigned on Friday.
One in six residents of the city of 40,000 southeast of Los Angeles lives in poverty.
“This is a test for our community,” Valencia said. “There’s been a fiasco here.”
The newspaper also revealed that the mayor and three of the council’s four other members make about $100,000 a year, most of it in salaries for sitting on boards and commissions. Only Councilman Lorenzo Velez makes a modest salary of about $8,000 a year.
The Mayor of Bell defended the high salaries after the report was released.
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Published May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 89 Comments
A Regular Joe commented:
Governments empower people to take money by force, if necessary and give it to themselves. Just like gangsters.
A Regular Joe commented:
Most people don’t realize that property taxes are essentially the government taking ownership of your house and mortgaging it back to you, a mortgage that never, ever ends. If you don’t make that payment, they will take the house, just like the bank would.
FreakyBoy commented:
Almost all the cities with 35,000 residents or less out here in Oklahoma have mayors that gets paid a stipend plus expenses…. if that. It’s a part time job that most take on to better their community, not to rape it. Most small town mayors continue to run their business or practice their professional while mayor.
brainpimp commented:
65,000 a month to be a mayor of a small town. Wow talk about hubris.
Clearly, I took the hard path by deciding to work.
bg commented:
++
YES!!
power to “we the people”, the way
our forefathers intended it to be..
God Bless The US Constitution!!
==
Carbon Monoxide commented:
Heck, I’ll do it for $350,000/year….as long as I don’t have to live there.
A Regular Joe commented:
I would think a good rule of thumb for the top city official, such as mayor, would be no more than $1 per inhabitant per year. City council: $0.50.
jomojava commented:
Let me guess….Democrats?
bg commented:
++
3 Bell leaders to quit in pay scandal
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Militant Conservative commented:
Trickle up change. WE THE PEOPLE are going to stop this crap. TPM is a idea long in the making and whose time has come. Not about color this is about constitutionality and capitalism. powder is dry.
bg commented:
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jomojava @ 7:26 am #10
albeit there are crooked Republicans.
my guess is your guess would be correct, that is unless the journolisters no longer employ the use of an R after a name, whereas they never have used a D..
==
Teardrop commented:
@bg
thanks for the link…very interesting article. I was shocked to read about the salaries the city council is getting as well.
What a waste of money, time, effort and supposed abilities. I would imagine that the city was NOT getting their money’s worth!!
What is wrong with these people?? How can they seriously rationalize their paychecks? It just boggles my mind.
mark commented:
And libs always demonize business owners because they make those evil profits.
The Bell problem won’t be fixed by resignations because the city leaders will still collect their pensions based on those salaries. There is also nothing illegal about earning 800K in salary as a gov’t official. So while it might be morally wrong, it’s not illegal.
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” JOHN ADAMS
Roare commented:
jomojava @ 7:26 am #10
From NewsBusters:
“Given the info learned thus far, the odds that this corruption is a straight-ticket Democratic enterprise would appear to be pretty high.”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2010/07/25/name-party-bell-california-edition#ixzz0unQhoHvz
PJ commented:
Funny that a guy was holding a sign with “heads on a stick” on it. That’s the slogan/calling card of John and Ken of KFI. Guess the taxpayers’ revolt is hitting even the Spanish speaking towns.
Opus #6 commented:
This is what you find when you lift the rock. Bloated slugs.
g6loq commented:
Why shaaaare a country with slugs …
Ruebacca commented:
The LA times mistakenly did some real journalism. I am sure they are sorry and wont let it happen again.
newton commented:
This is what the Tea Party Movement is all about: holding government officials accountable for their actions.
This is wonderful! Buen trabajo!
This is a sign of things to come. Did you hear me, Congresscritters? You’re next!
averagemelon commented:
It’s time to make some straight-forward laws concerning paychecks and benefits for elected officials. Voters are going to have to get in on the action from now on from every little hamlet straight to the president’s office.
redc1c4 commented:
that whole area went hispanic in the 70′s and 80′s, and there is a large population of illegals there (Bell, Maywood, Huntington Park, Cudahy, South Gate, Lynnwood, etc)
what you are seeing is just one of the many quaint and charming customs that the influx of unrestrained illegal immigration provides.
they elect corrupt thugs at home, and now they do the same here…. is it any wonder the Obama regime got so many votes in LA county in 2008?
Maria commented:
More videos of the people demanding that the mayor and city council rescind their high salaries.
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/bell-councilman-calls-for-pay-investigation-20100719
The people are angry about the overspending.
Bruce Cunningham commented:
It was around 4 years ago (before the meltdown) The state of Kalifornicia, did a study of Bell and decided they needed to spruce things up, whalaa they sold a $17,000,000 bond, oh yes indeed the town of Bell did re-pave a road to the spruced up park and all was good:). So I dont see the problem here.Damn them dirty banksters, the dear leaders took their cut fair and square.
Marie commented:
I live in one of those cities that redc1c4 mentioned where the majority of the city demographic are Hispanics. I am happy to see John and Ken influence in the city of Bell.
There was some accountability in our predominately Hispanic city, our council members were kicked out after they were planning to demolish a newly constructed High school
and turn it into a football stadium.
And our former mayor, Paul Richards, was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for municipal corruption.
Hint: Lindsay Lohan is serving her jail sentence right now *puts on Hazmat suit*
Old One commented:
Southgate had an equally insane sitiation a few years ago. Thre mayor, city treasurer, and a number of the city counsel members had been robbing the city blind for years.
The brigands were finally brought down by an honorable city councilman who had bullets fired into his backyard that whistled past his wife while gardening. The police were in the filth and failed to enforce the law by investigating the incident. Soemtime later the councilman’s wife found one of the bullets.
The honorable councilam finally won the battle after he aroused the citizenry but not before the scofflaws (including the mayor & city treasurer stole the city’s 8 million dollar reserve fund to pay for their defense lawyers.
I myself live in a beach city where some years ago the city manager engaged in some patently illegal spying actions aimed at the . As a result of the city manager’s actions he was fired by the city council but walked away with a million dollars as a buy out for the remainder of his contract.
Equally as hideous deals or worse have gone down in the Los Angeles Unified School District with the hiring and firng of superintendents and bureauweenies down the pecking order of that dysfunctional corrupt entity.
The driven from -power Bell City manger at age 55 will walk away wiha completely CPI indexed $600,000+ annual pension.
Antics such as those in Bell are going on in nearly every city, county, special district, school district in California and nationwide.
bg commented:
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Teardrop @ 7:42 am #14
yep..
but dang those CEO’s getting
those one time bonuses.. /s/
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PJ commented:
Look behind the Citadel next time you’re driving down the 5 through this area. You will see a huge building with an SEIU-UHW sign on it 20 feet high. It’s obvious the Dems and their thugs rule the area.
Plainer commented:
Extortion a la Mafia style is alive and well in Bell. AG Brown ought to explore if any criminal shannigans are a part of this payment for protection plan. Looks pretty fishy.
J morris commented:
why are the names of the $100k crooks left out?!