LA Times Festival of Books. Busted: Uncovering the Bell Scandal

My third panel on Sunday was regarding the city of Bell scandal.  This is a scandal that fascinated me as it was unfolding.

The following are stolen biographies from the LA Times:

Christopher Goffard (moderator):  Goffard writes for the Los ANgeles Times and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing in 2007.  His first novel, 'Snitch Jacket,' was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Rick Cole:  Cole Became city manager of Ventura in 2004 after serving for six years as city manager of Azusa.  Called 'one of Southern California's most visionary planning thinkers' by the Los Angeles Times, Cole was honored by Governing Magazine as one of its nine '2006 Public Officials of the Year.'

Jeff Gottlieb:  While at the San Jose Mercury News, Gottlieb received the George Polk Award for his reporting on Stanford University's questionable spending of federal research funds.  As a senior writer at the Los Angeles Times, he received the Polk Award again this year, along with colleague Ruben Vives, for their reporting on corruption in the city of Bell.  Gottlieb and Vives also won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.


Ruben Vives:  Vives is a Los Angeles Times reporter whose coverage with Jeff Gottlieb of the City of Bell involved more than two dozen other reporters and editors, and led to criminal charges against eight current and former officials.  This reporting won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

And my imperfect notes from the panel discussion.

Vives and Gottlieb.  The story started with Maywood.  Maywood decided to outsource their police unit to the County Sheriffs and municipal services to Bell.  There were already some questions/inquiry by the DA regarding Bell.  The city council was getting $100,000/year.  It reminded Jeff Gottlieb of East Palo Alto.  He felt something was going on.  Jeff and Ruben went to talk to Rizzo, the city manager.  He told them to talk to the city clerk.  The city clerk pushed them off, saying they needed to wait ten days on something that could have taken 10 minutes.  Activists at Bell said Rizzo made $300k.

On day 9, the clerk called to say Rizzo wanted to meet.  Rizzo and others (police chief, some from the city council) met the journalists.  Rizzo said he was making $700k.  $457k for the police Chief.  $215k for the assistant city manager.  The interview went on for four hours.  Two councilmen were there.  Pastor said, I thought it was a gift of God -- $100/year.  Later, when everything was being uncovered, the pastor said, "Rizzo was sent by the devil."

53% of Bell is foreign born.  Folks don’t understand how government works.  No big newspaper to watch. No checks and balances.  No city council.  Auditors didn’t do their jobs.  Fake documents were handed out.  Rizzo looks like Danny DeVito from the Penguin from the Batnam movie.  Rizzo put the city on its feet financially, but by 2003 he was trying to scam.  By 2005 there was a vote on Tuesday the day after Thanksgiving for a charter vote.  Many absentee votes.  Questions of voter fraud.

City employees were also paid high salaries.

Bell faces a 5m deficit by June.  A recent city council meeting went from 7 p.m. till 3 a.m.  13 million budget with a 5 million deficit.  Do they get rid of police and transfer to the Sheriff to save $3.5m.

Bell is the 3^rd poorest city in the county, but had the 2^nd higheset tax rate. 

Both journalists were a little worried for their safety.  Why meet in a park?  RV went early.  Started writing down license plate numbers of the cars parked in the lot.  Felt it was sketchy.  JG told his editor he was going to the park.  Rizzo had fake contracts to divide his salary into five.  The person who signed was not the mayor.  One problem, old mayor only had a sixth grade education from Mexico. 

Bell was having problems due to the economy.  Why did Bell pay higher taxes, illegal property tax against them.

Rick Cole.  No one has written a story on why these conditions exist.  500k people live in 9 South East Los Angeles cities.  Rights are being deprived.  Working class moved out, the poor moved in.  Cities don’t serve them.  Currently little boys and girls are growing up where schools are bad, libraries are only open 12 hours a week.  Believes government needs to consolidate.  That Vernon is battling so hard to stay alive shows how corrupt it is.  Run like a mafia.  Passing more laws doesn’t prevent evasion of law.  You can put in more checks and balances, but what is needed is a better electorate.  Not sure passing more laws is needed.  Need government reform/consolidation.

     

Vernon has a value of 3.1b and just 96 people.  Bell has a value of 2.4b and 35,000 people.  People of Bell work in Vernon.  Their money is going to crooks in Vernon.

Communities that are hard to govern, city manager must be very creative.  Best people go to cities where little happen.  Tough cities don’t have same public civic ethics.  Erosion of public service ethics.

Head on over to the LA Times for their review of the discussion.