Four Bell council members must resign after turning city into ‘laughing stock,’ colleague says

Bell City Councilman Lorenzo Velez, the only member of the City Council not under investigation for a high salary or being targeted for recall, is calling for the resignation of his four colleagues.

In a statement released late Sunday, Velez said he is now supporting the recall efforts of the Bell Assn. to Stop the Abuse and believes the city must "clean house." The four other council members -- Oscar Hernandez, Luis Artiga, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal –- had been earning $100,000 a year until they announced recently that they would take a 90% pay cut.

"They have no credibility and have made Bell the laughing stock of the nation," Velez said. "If they have any integrity remaining, they would save the city the cost of a recall and resign."

Velez said the city must appoint a new administrative officer, police chief and city attorney to assure residents that the city can heal and move forward.

Velez' statements come after new revelations that the city's former chief administrative officer, Robert Rizzo, was earning a compensation package of $1.5 million annually, nearly double the $787,000 annual salary that The Times' first reported. The councilman said he believes there is a "conscious effort to withhold information" and that officials have "dragged their feet" in releasing documents.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office and state attorney general's office are investigating the high salaries as well as allegations of voter fraud in Bell.

-- Kimi Yoshino

Comments

[George]

Each and every employee of Bell are getting paid high salary in comparison with other small cities, including the meter maid making over $80,000 a year to issue parking tickets. The new city council should clean out the entire corrupt government employees and start over.

[ET Snell]

The liberty bell has rung.

[kristin]

The call for resignation is the best thing I've heard from any member of the Bell City Council.

[sue]

Just goes to show just because someone looks like you, may even speak the same language as you, but that does not meant they are in your corner. This is greed at its finest, as a tax payer I am not too fond of having to pay the retirement of crooks or better yet crooks with a title.

[dan ehrlich]

Some people should be charged and jailed over this outrage before they can skip across the border. It's a tragedy of minority groups in America, whether Hispanics, Italians, Blacks,Irish and Jews,etc., that their own people exploit them for their own ends worse than the majority culture.

[Andmaude]

Dragging their feet?

Chief foot dragger is Pedro Carrillo. He has been leading this coverup ever since he was appointed Interim City Manager and defended the salaries of rizzo et al on camera. Now he his pulling stunts like releasing new salary information at 5pm on a Friday to try and bury it? That's a PR stunt that he must have learned in the movies -- and it didn't work.

Carrillo is there to try and protect the real corruption - the contracts that he and Rizzo and George Cole put in place to make millions. Yes, millions! This salary stuff is a media circus, but the real focus of the DA, FBI, AG and media should be the contracts. If it was just the salaries Pedro and others would have walked away from Bell - but with millions of dollars at stake they are trying to dig in their heels and weather the storm.

I hope it is true that the AG will take over for the city attorney, that they will kick Carrillo out, and that it isn't too late. Boxes of documents have already been taken out of city hall in the dead of night, and there's no way of telling how many documents have been shredded, destroyed or "lost" since this scandal opened.

[anon]

I think we as citizens must stand up against corruption. I believe this is now the only way to get representatives to work for the people. Not for their own interest and the lobbyist. I think the media for informing us and the media and the citizens of this nation can make the change. We shouldn't rely on leaders when they are not performing their tasks for the benefit for the people. They are doing for themselves, lobbyist and political affiliation.

[Andy Gonzalez]

Please, If you can post the true salries, like the complete compensations packages and not just the annual salaries. The mayor and rest of the top people that lead this city.

Thank You A Gonzalez

[Greg Katz]

Not only should the Bell City Council members resign, but they must forego all retirement benefits, including medical for all years where they ripped off Bell and other cities with their exhorbitant pay and vacation days. This is absolutely one of the most flagrant misuses of public trust in history. This is much worse than Nixon's Watergate affair. At elast his henchmen didn't steal from the city coffers of a poor city.

I am totally surprised that there's not a criminal charge here against these yahoos.

[Frank Aronoff]

Jerry "Captain Renault" Brown is shocked that such abuses have been taking place in California local government.

Government workers were unionize under Brown
Democrats have controlled the State Leguislature for 60 of the past 62 years
( there were a couple of sessions with equal # of D & R)

Bell isn't alone - the entire state and local governmental personnel structure has been abused - salaries and benefits. The effects will last another 50 years ++ as taxpayers will be playing off the bloated pensions

[Alice Peters]

Interesting that, while the record proves Lorenzo Velez was every bit as ignorant as his colleagues as to how the city functioned and what the executives were paid, he calls for his colleagues to resign - and hasn't and apparently won't do so himself.

This IS the man whose FIRST public reaction upon learning what his council colleagues were paid was to demand the same for himself, right? And he was arguing then that they were slighting him by not paying him what they were getting, right?

Yes, it's entertaining to watch Velez continue to take these not-terribly-subtle sideways steps away from his colleagues, but as a council member he was every bit the happily ignorant clown as the others, and when he first had an opportunity to decry the absurd salaries for part-time public servants who ostensibly volunteer, his initial reaction was, "I want mine, too!"

I hope the folks of Bell don't let him keep up this unprincipled little performance. What, whether appointed to fill a vacancy or elected, in all this time he never wondered where in the city budget he could find the payroll amount for the city's chief executive? Never thought it was his business to know what the pay was for the ONLY employee over whom a city council in a city manager form of government has direct control?

Velez was every bit as incompetent and ignorant as his colleagues - he just didn't have the years-long record of it that some of the others had. But he had more than enough.

[John L Mendez]

I commend Bell City Councilman Lorenzo Velez for calling on his colleagues to resign. Imagine if Velez had never been appointed to this council! There would never have been one member of Integrity for the citizens to rally around. I Pray Bell and its residents are favored w/ government "for the people, by the people."

[Tony ( aka Brains)]

Those council members NEED to be arrested NOW. The first one to 'RAT' the others OUT gets the sweetheart deal the rest can go to PRISON !

[Mike]

Of course those four Bell city councilmembers must resign. The only reason they lowered their salaries is because they were caught and exposed. How can people like this be trusted? Of course, they cannot be trusted to run Bell and that's why they must leave, and leave now. If the gang of four wants to really salvage some decency out of this, then they must do the right thing and step down from council. And people of Bell and every city: pay attention what goes on in your city hall and for goodness sake, vote! Thank you LA Times for exposing all of this; keep it up.

[andy levinson]

By Bell standards, every employee of L.A. City and County and LAUSD are crooks....everyone makes more than the $80,000 Bell metermiad

[HiVeloCT]

Frank Aranov,

First of all, none of these individuals in Bell are union employees nor were their contracts negotiated by a union. And Brown has no direct oversight of local municipalities unless a crime is uncovered and brought to the attention of the AG's office. This has happened, thus his office is now investigating.

And if I had to bet, I'd bet that Rizzo and company are registered Republicans. But regardless, in my experience thieves are non-partisan.

[Kingfish]

Just Leave and wait to be sued.

[SaraL]

If I were a homeowner that paid taxes in Bell. I would definitely want a refund check back in the mail.
They got away with this for a long time. I wonder how many more city council members in other cities in southern cal are being paid these ridiculous wages. They all need to be investigated and locked up for ripping off the american people.

[chill]

i don't think they should get their pension because this was fraud

[Paul Espinoza]

CITIZENS OF BELL: A) Demand that ALL paper shredders be removed from all buildings having to do with this fiasco; and B) Create a community watch 24/7 so no more boxes of "office supplies" are moved from the premises.

You must assume that EVERYTHING is evidentiary at this point. Don't let these crooks who have convicted themselves allow anything go unturned in order to see the full extent of their crimes against their own people.

[MPOA]

The rat pack in Maywood (Felipe Aguirre, Gordado and Ana Rizo) were also put into office with the help of George Cole and are definitely part of the Southeast corruption that Cole controls. They were planning to rip off the city even more than they already have. Once the Maywood council is replaced we can bring back our police department.

[Cathy]

Everyone at fault and everyone who had knowledge of this should be put in jail. Everyone shouldn't get pensions or retirement. And, we should make a new law that everyone's salary who works for any city or government entity should PUBLISH their salary. We need to end this ridiculousness - across the political board!!!!!!!!!

[DesertRat]

What amazes me is how everyone wants to blame the City Manager, Chief Administrative Officer, how the City Council are pointing fingers everywhere, when it's the City Council's responsibility to know and approve what's going on around them.

Somewhere, at some time, the City Council approved and signed these contracts. Now, to claim they had no knowledge meant they didn't read the contracts before they signed them and didn't do their job.

I've served on boards before; like Harry Truman, the buck stops there!

Reminds me of stories I've heard of politicians and officials in Mexico who get a position and retire wealthy a few years down the road. Can't give up the habits of the old mother country, huh?

[Justaguy]

The reason the council won't quit is, it's in there contracts if they are in office till November they will get lifetime medical. So if they drag their feet they will get that then quit after November. As far as the Chief goes the only reason he came to Bell was his relationship (affair) with Angela Spaccia. She is the only reason he showed up and was so well taken care of. Hope this is looked into other then his claim of a bad Police Dept. and he was brought in to clean up. In meetings we had with him (yes I was there) He said coming to Bell was for financial gain only since he was going to retire anyways.

[JCC476]

Time for a RICO investigation into criminal antics and to recover ALL the monies paid to this pack of crooks over the last 15 years.