by George Bao
LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The Bell city officials' salary scandal in the United States has prompted more journalists to dig into local governments for possible corruption and made more Americans suspicious of their local government officials.
Bell, a small city in Southern California, made national news last week when residents angrily protested after learning through news reports of the exorbitant pay of its city manager, 787,637 dollars annually, and the chief of police, 457,000 dollars.
Robert Rizzo was possibly the highest paid city manager, or chief administrative officer, in the United States. The problem is, it was the city council members who voted to set the record high salaries for the city manager and police chief. And while voted for the extremely high salaries for those positions, they also voted extremely high pay for themselves, with about 10,000 dollars annually for each council member.
Council members for small cities like Bell in California get an average of 400 dollars each month for their part-time work for the city, but Bell city council members get paid over 20 times than average.
What angered the local residents and people nationwide is that Bell is a poor city: its per capita income is about half the national average.
Under pressure from residents, City Manager Robert Rizzo, Police Chief Randy Adams and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia who also made 376,288 dollars a year have resigned. Bell residents are expected to push for the resignations of four of the five council members -- each of the four makes 100,000 dollars a year.
Also, California State Attorney General Jerry Brown on Monday issued subpoenas for hundreds of salary and employment documents from the city of Bell to determine whether top officials broke laws in awarding out-sized salaries to city administrators and City Council members.
"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," Brown was quoted as saying by local press.
"I'm determined to get to the bottom of these exorbitant payouts and protect the state's pension system against such abuses, and today's subpoenas are an important step in that process," said Brown.
The Bell official salary scandal was exposed by Los Angeles Times journalists. Now more journalists are digging into local governments for possible corruptions and more residents are sending e-mails or making phone calls to journalists from local and national level to scrutinize their local officials.
James Spencer, a journalist from the www.publicceo.com website, wrote that reporters are digging. They want to know every detail of every dollar and any crooked numbers will be exposed. They are looking for corruption.
He said his inbox is filled each day with numerous allegations of corruption in a given city or county -- "Hey, look into what's going on in this city."
He said people are angry and outraged. Sometimes for good reason, sometimes just to be outraged. Local government employees are under the microscope more than ever.
Los Angeles Times journalists Catherine Saillant, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives who have done a brilliant job investigating the city of Bell are busy with new tips.
"We are getting tips everyday and following up," Saillant wrote in her newspaper.
"The public is so energized on this. I have never seen a response like this to a story and I've been a journalist for 23 years," she added.
According to Spencer, the trust is broken at every level of government and it comes at a time when taxpayers are counting every penny.
Spencer said his advice to those in local government already living in a fish bowl is to embrace the bowl, make it easy for constituents to see their salaries, post in on their website, control the information and not wait for reporters to come asking.
The Orange County Register published an editorial which says that in the wake of the Bell salary scandal, readers noticed one part of the story has been left out by virtually all media sources: the political party affiliations of the five city council members who not only failed to protect city coffers, but participated in what amounts to shameless, if apparently legal, self-dealing.
According to the editorial, all five city council members are Democrats and Bell also is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Of the 9,918 registered voters, 6,193 are registered Democrats and there are more decline-to-state voters (1,760) than there are Republicans (1,289), according to the Registrar of Voters.
The editorial says Democratic Party members represent Bell voters in every level of government. At the federal level Bell is represented by Democrat Lucille Roybal-Allard. The city's state assemblyman is Hector De La Torre and its state senator is Ronald S. Calderon, both Democrats.
"So readers wonder whether the omission by media about the party affiliation of Bell's council members demonstrates bias -- not wanting to stain the Democratic Party with the Bell brush. Interesting point, but we omitted party affiliation, for instance, because city council positions in Los Angeles County and Orange County are non-partisan races, meaning candidates and elected officials do not have their party affiliations listed on ballots or campaign materials; so, it could be argued that identifying party is unnecessary," the editorial says.
The editorial stresses that on balance, party affiliations of elected officials should be noted and easily accessible so voters can make informed decisions about who they elect to public office. Voter registration is public information, but it currently is somewhat difficult to obtain.
The Los Angeles Times says in an editorial that it would be comforting to be able to conclude that the problems in Bell -- or in nearby cities such as Maywood, South Gate, Lynwood, Vernon and Compton, which have all been plagued by exploitation, mismanagement and corruption -- originated with a handful of municipal officials who forgot their moral and fiduciary duties to the people they were supposed to serve. Or, perhaps, that the people of those cities brought these problems on themselves by electing such leaders, or by staying away from the polls and allowing themselves to be suckered.
That is a lesson to be learned, according to the newspaper.
