California Attorney General Jerry Brown subpoenaed hundreds of employment, salary and contract
records from the city of Bell, whose manager was paid almost
$800,000 a year and resigned last week.
Brown said he is considering whether to initiate civil or
criminal action against city leaders. Hundreds of citizens
marched through city streets yesterday to demand the resignation
of the mayor and other council members.
“This smells to high heaven,” Brown said at a Los Angeles
press conference. “These outrageous pay practices are an insult
to the hard-working people of Bell and have provoked righteous
indignation in California and even across the country.”
Bell, 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles,
has a largely Latino population with income of $24,800 per
person in 2008, according to the city’s 2009 annual report. More
than a quarter of its residents live below the poverty level,
according to the website City-Data.com.
The city’s chief administrative officer, Robert Rizzo,
resigned July 22 after the Los Angeles Times reported his total
compensation was almost $800,000 a year and that Bell’s part-
time council members took in almost $100,000 annually, mostly by
serving on city-affiliated boards and commissions.
The City Council issued a statement saying that the mayor
and three council members will drastically cut their pay at a
meeting later today, according to the Associated Press.
Brown, 72, a former California secretary of state and
governor, is running as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate
against former EBay Inc. Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman,
who is on the Republican ticket.
“I’m determined to get to the bottom of these exorbitant
payouts and protect the state’s pension system against such
abuses,” Brown said of his investigation of Bell.
To contact the reporter responsible for this story:
Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at
cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net.
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