Posted on 12/12/2010 2:51:11 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
How the Road to Bell Was Paved
Not with good intentions but with the avarice of professional government bureaucrats
Autumn 2010
Before this summer, even many Southern Californians had never heard of Bell, a modest Los Angeles suburb of 37,000 located near enough to the big city for views of the downtown skyscrapers. Then the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story revealing that Bell’s city manager, Robert Rizzo, was receiving a salary of $787,637, while the police chief got $457,000 a year and the assistant city manager made $376,288.
Overnight, Bell became America’s most famous kleptocracy, featured in national publications and on network news programs. The quick resignations of the three hypercompensated civil servants failed to kill the story. Further efforts by Times reporters uncovered extravagant pay packages for other city employees, outlandish fringe benefits, and loans of public funds to city workers and favored businesses. The state attorney general filed a lawsuit against Rizzo and other Bell officials, while the Los Angeles County district attorney indicted him, the assistant city manager, and six current or former city council members on corruption charges. If none of those legal actions succeeds, taxpayers throughout California can expect to fund a pension for Rizzo worth $600,000 per year, according to the Times’s calculations, while the retired police chief makes ends meet on a pension of $411,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
P!
Well, looks like they just had themselves a cushy thing going and no one was noticing for a while. Guess it’ll have its day in court maybe.
No doubt these parasites campaiged against “greedy republicans” who were looking out for the interests of “the rich”.
Animal Farm comes to mind...
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There are a lot more city of Bells out there than just the one in California.
Look for more city of Bells in the following states: Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.
Ten former San Diego city employees will split $61 million dollars for the rest of their lives. Did they win the lottery? No – they will receive it in payouts from the City of San Diego pension system, according to CFFR’s president Marcia Fritz. “I was shocked by what I discovered in the City of Bell, and I’m shocked by what I discovered in the City of San Diego. San Diego is just like Bell – only bigger,” said Fritz.
These are just two of several shocking revelations about the City of San Diego’s pension system contained in a report being released this morning. The report was compiled by Fritz – a CPA and the pension expert who revealed the outrageous pension payouts in the City of Bell. San Diego Councilmember Carl DeMaio will join Fritz at an 11:00 am press conference at City Hall. In addition to discussing the report itself, DeMaio will lay out pension reforms that should immediately be implemented in the City of San Diego. (Excerpt) Read more at californiapensionreform.com ...
Corruption it’s all over the place media is failing at it’s job or on the take too?.
I find the responses to this to be absolutely hilarious... Public officials, even in the most socialistic, DhimmiRat controlled municipalities still have PUBLIC meetings. Granted, those in control often stifle inquiry and dissent, but the record must still be maintained in some detail. The financial records are public records, for the most part; especially budgets and fund accounting records.
If these officials, and others like them around the country, are being paid ‘exorbitant’ salaries, then the PUBLIC can blame no one but themselves. The PUBLIC has a responsibility to look out for their own interests. Seems to me that, absent clear evidence of corruption or misconduct regarding achieving those salaries, the Sheeple don’t have a leg to stand on regarding the pay or the pension. Other issues? The loans and such? Perhaps...but there’s got to be a record of the money moving...somewhere.
As a former small town Mayor, I can attest to the State’s oversight of financial records and reporting, supported by the legislative record of proceedings that enabled the budget and the spending. IIRC, our little town, like all the others in the State, was audited by the State every two years, with an interim audit in the off year, if issues had been reported in the biennial audit. The State Auditor couldn’t change salaries VOTED by the legislative authority, but he/she could issue findings regarding such things, and make recommendations to the Town and to the State Auditor’s Office about them. As long as the vote was deemed fair and open, the amounts of the salaries were NOT an issue for the State.
I’m guessing that even Kalifornia has a Sunshine Law of some sort, and that most of the meetings of the legislative authority are open to the public, along with committee meetings and such. If the public isn’t interested in following those goings-on, then they certainly get the government they deserve...
To put on such a display of indignation after the fact is simply ludicrous.
Public ‘stocks’ (the kind used in the colonial days) are not enough for some of these cases — public hangings might begin to re-establish some accountability and ‘deterrence’ of official misconduct.
“A crucial point on the road to the scandal was a 2005 special election in which residents voted to make Bell’s local government exempt from state laws on municipal compensation. The turnout in that election was fewer than 400 people—less than 5 percent of Bell’s registered voters.”
The hidden part of the article is in both cases the “public servants” were able to exempt their salaries from outside overview/control.
In Bell's case the city employees had to vote for raises. In America's case the federal congress critters have to vote against pay raises. Is there, at the bottom line, that much difference between the two?
Take a look at the spending for various federal critter jobs, from the Presidency on down. Is there a single case where a candidate, successful or otherwise, spent less than the salary he could expect to earn during his term of office?
Which one of “We, the People” can afford to conduct a job search spending more than the gross salary we expected to earn?
Which one of “We, the People” expect to increase our net worth, up to an including becoming a millionaire, at our current jobs within the next 5 - 10 years?
Yep, at both the local, state, and national levels we are getting the best government that money can but. Aren't we?
“The turnout in that election was fewer than 400 people—less than 5 percent of Bell’s registered voters.”
I’m sure the election was well publicized among the public employees who benefited from the largesse; the rest of the populace never heard of it.
Kakocracy - “rule by the worst of us”; is made up from two Greek words:
kakos (n) bad, evil
kratei (n) to be strong, to rule
From another thread, but it fits this one.
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