Posted on 08/14/2010 9:16:40 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
State Controller John Chiang declared Friday that Bell – the Southern California city enmeshed in a scandal over high salaries paid to city officials – has been illegally assessing ultra-high property taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
The peasants don't mind. They're fine with it.
Sorry if this has already been posted. I did a search and nothing came up.
While Bell officials were looting the city treasury for themselves as they laid off other city workers, they were also fleecing residents with illegally high property tax bills. I think the cads who tried to pull this off are going down, and going down hard, before this is all over.
Have the highly paid city employees been sued..also, have they lost their pensions?
Proof that if you have a ‘D’ after your name, anything goes. Ask Rangel or Waters.
They can’t lose their pensions until wrong-doing has been proven. That’s the key effort to the government case now. It’ll take at least six months to gather evidence and then start the case. Figure a two-year period before it finally comes up and a judge makes a decision. Then you have the appeal process. Then the folks might lose their pension.
In the greatest party-affiliation cover-up since the media tried to portray Gary Condit as a Republican, the media are refusing to mention the party affiliation of the thieving government officials in Bell, Calif. There have been hundreds of news stories about Bell city officials' jaw-dropping salaries. In this poor city on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where the per capita annual income is $24,800 a year, the city manager, Robert Rizzo, had a salary of $787,637. That's about twice what the president of the United States makes. (To be fair, Rizzo was doing a better job.)
Rizzo was the highest-paid government employee in the entire country, not counting Maxine Waters' husband -- pending further revelations. With benefits, his total annual compensation, according to the Los Angeles Times, came to $1.5 million a year. Alerted to the Bell situation, the White House quickly added the Bell city manager to the list of jobs saved by its stimulus plan. Not only that, but Rizzo was entitled to 28 weeks off a year for vacation and sick leave. To put that in perspective, that's almost as much vacation time as public school teachers get! Reached in Spain, even Michelle Obama was outraged.
Rizzo responded to the anger over his preposterous salary by saying: "If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business. I could go into private business and make that money." (If he wants to grab one of those private-sector jobs that pays $1.5 million for 24 weeks of work, may I suggest the entertainment industry?) Good luck to him. After leaving Bell, Rizzo will be lucky to land a job at Taco Bell. Before being anointed the King Tut of Bell, Rizzo was the city manager of Hesperia, Calif., where he was overpaid only to the tune of $78,000 a year.
The police chief, Randy Adams, was making $457,000 -- $770,046 including benefits. The assistant city manager, Angela Spaccia, had a $376,288 salary, with a total compensation package of $845,960. Being just an assistant city manager, Angela had to pay for her own yacht. After the Los Angeles Times reported the stratospheric government salaries in little Bell, and the people of the town revolted, the millionaire government employees all resigned.
That'll show 'em! Oops, except upon their resignations, they qualified for lifetime pensions worth, by some estimates, more than $50 million. Read more at AnnCoulter.Com
===================================
LET'S PLAY 'SPOT THE DEMOCRAT'
Oops----I read that too fast.
I was getting all ready to Spit on a Democrat...........LOL.
This story is still developing with news almost every day. The Los Angeles County District Attorney, Republican Steve Cooley, has been investigating since March. Others shoes are still to drop.
Thanks for the posts. BTTT!
I forgot to add, the embezzlers in Bell ALL contributed handsomely to Jerry Brown’s campaign for State Attorney General.
Any generic democrat administration writ small.
its all over the nation...and now more news..feds own 1 in 3 acres in the US and buying more..even personal property..Buying the nation. what do they need with it?
all cities are doing it...property values have dropped but they are still raising appraisals.
UT, OH, RED FLAG "Honesty personified" CalPERS (Cali pension system) ruled the city of Bell had provided sufficient documentation to authorize raises for Bell officials....including a 47% salary increase in one year.
Bell officials filed official documents to obtain govt monies? Taxpayers should demand to know the scope and dimension of deceptive and intentionally ambiguous information contained therein.
Bell officials may have violated RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) by generating fraudulent documents to extort taxpayers and steal govt monies.
L/E should place a hold on all Bell documents. Stealing and conveying (or destroying) official govt records nets 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
L/E should also look at Computer Trespass--a class C felony if access is made with the intent to commit a crime and/or the violation involves a computer or database maintained by a government agency. \
ACTION Examine all Bell officials' perks, expense accounts, unauthorized 6-figure bonuses, pensions, tax-evading annuities, etc. etc etc.
THE BIGGIE ---- Bell officials' tax returns will reveal their actual income compared with govt outlays. In particular, examine “interest income” on Bell officials' IRS returns.
=========================================
Insider collusion to dupe taxpayers is actionable. Jailtime is a MUST.
But does it apply to Democrats?
Not in Orange county. My appraisal went down. I believe it’s mandated by Prop 13. Perhaps others more knowledgeable can chine in.
“its all over the nation...and now more news..feds own 1 in 3 acres in the US and buying more..even personal property..Buying the nation. what do they need with it?”
This might be a topic worth bringing to the front.
Care to post any sources?
lots more counties and towns need investigating..
It is clear that there was a conspiracy among numerous city officials to loot the treasury. I do believe these guys are going to jail in the end. They may squeak by with less punishment than they deserve, but this case is an earthquake rumbling across the State. EVERY government body here is checking salaries, posting them online, etc. These men will not skate, IMHO.
“The peasants don’t mind. They’re fine with it.”
Exactly. Why do the liberals keep electing these idiots? Could it be that they don’t pay taxes anyway?
“Chiang demanded that Bell’s property tax rate be reduced to the legal level and that the extra levies for the past three years be reallocated from the city to local school districts – as required by state law.”
Seems to me that the overcharged property tax should go directly back to the property owners not the schools otherwise what is the difference to complain about overcharges if it just goes to the schools or in the city coffers if it was an overcharge they had no right to take it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.