East Los Angeles College History Professor S.

Wardinski Historical Writing Project: Scandal and the City of Bell, Summer 2010 This project is designed to help you in historical writing which is a major component of this class. The four articles that follow are from the Los Angeles Times about the scandal with city officials pay in the local City of Bell in the summer of 2010. These stories are considered a form of primary sources accounts written by those who either participated in the events or were directly reporting on them at the time and in the place that they occurred. Secondary sources are accounts like your textbook accounts written by those who have done research into events after the fact and have used various primary sources, as well as other previously created secondary sources, to analyze, summarize, and evaluate the people and events = to tell the factual story of history. Your assignment is to take these two articles and use them as your evidence to create a secondary source that tells the factual story of the history of the 2010 Scandals of the City of Bell. This account that you create should answer the questions of what happened, when did it happen, who was involved, what background information and facts do you think are necessary to include to tell the full story of what happened, why did it happen, and what did the people who were involved think about what was happening this is all considered the analysis of the events and evidence and will, by definition, serve as a summary of them as well. You should also offer your opinion, based on that evidence which you summarize and analyze, of why these events are important or significant, what might happen in the future as a result of these events, and how these events relate to society, the nation and/or the world beyond just the City of Bell this is considered a singular evaluation of these events a comparative evaluation would compare these people and events to others like them or unlike them to draw some sort of wider conclusion, using them as your basis of analysis. You should introduce your ideas at the beginning of the writing with a thesis that briefly presents your summary, analysis and evaluation and, after the body of your work sets out your evidence, analysis, and evaluation, concludes by summarizing your findings and presenting your final analysis and evaluation of the factual story of history you have just told. Anyone can look up facts in a textbook or on the Internet good historical writing, the kind that you will be expected to do in this or other college-level history classes, requires not just the facts but also (1) summarizing, (2) analysis based on evidence, especially primary source evidence, and (3) evaluation.

Assignment: By Sunday 2/12/12 at 11:59pm, write a 2-3 page, double-spaced paper, with standard font and 1 margins on all sides, which uses the four Los Angeles Times articles attached as your primary evidence that summarizes, analyzes, and evaluates the events regarding the Scandals in the City of Bell in the Summer of 2010 and its ongoing ramifications in 2012 and post this paper to the discussion board. Note: Failure to complete this assignment is grounds for being dropped from the class as a no-show Note Part II: Posts to the ETUDES discussion board cannot be formatted the guidelines above are meant to be a guide as to how long the paper should be such guidelines will be used throughout the class.

Article #1

Is a city manager worth $800,000?

Bell, one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager, according to documents reviewed by The Times. In addition to the $787,637 salary of Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, Bell pays Police Chief Randy Adams $457,000 a year, about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck or Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and more than double New York City's police commissioner. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers. Top officials have routinely received hefty annual raises in recent years. Rizzo's contract calls for 12% raises each July, the same as his top deputy, according to documents obtained under the California Public Records Act. Rizzo, who has run Bell's day-to-day civic affairs since 1993, was unapologetic about his salary. "If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business," he said. "I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done." Spaccia agreed, adding: "I would have to argue you get what you pay for." Bell Mayor Oscar Hernandez defended the salaries. "Our city is one of the best in the area. That is the result of the city manager. It's not because I say it. It's because my community says it." Hernandez and other council members said the city was near bankruptcy when Rizzo came aboard 17 years ago. Since then, they said, he has put Bell on sound financial footing, with its general fund nearly tripling to about $15 million. "Our streets are cleaner, we have lovely parks, better lighting throughout the area, our community is better," Hernandez said. "These things just don't happen, they happen because he had a vision and made it happen." Bell made headlines in recent weeks when the city of 37,000 agreed to take over operations of the neighboring city of Maywood, which fired most of its employees and disbanded its police department when it could not obtain insurance. Located about 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Bell has a population that is about 90% Latino and 53% foreign-born. Its per capita income is about half that for the U.S. Experts in city government said they were amazed at the salaries the city pays, particularly Rizzo's. "I have not heard anything close to that number in terms of compensation or salary," said Dave Mora, West Coast regional director of the International City/County Management Assn., and a retired city manager.

By comparison, Manhattan Beach, a far wealthier city with about 7,000 fewer people, paid its most recent city manager $257,484 a year. The city manager of Long Beach, with a population close to 500,000, earns $235,000 annually. Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T Fujioka makes $338,458. The salaries do not appear to violate any laws, said Dave Demerjian, head of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division. State law governs how much city council members can be paid, but not the amounts that council members decide to pay administrators, Demerjian said. The district attorney is investigating Bell over the hefty compensation of its City Council members about $100,000 a year for part-time positions. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, Demerjian said. The council has increased its compensation by paying members for serving on a variety of city agencies, including the Community Redevelopment Agency, the Community Housing Authority, the Planning Commission, the Public Financing Authority, the Surplus Property Authority and the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority. Demerjian said city records show each council member receives $7,873.25 per month for sitting on those boards Records indicate that the boards of those agencies perform little work and that board meetings take place during council meetings, though the names of some of the agencies seldom appear. In some years, the council would hold separate meetings for those agencies, and they would sometimes last no more than a minute. On July 31, 2006, four agencies each met for one minute. On March 3, 2008, the redevelopment agency meeting was called to order at 7:21 p.m. and adjourned at 7:22 p.m. Councilman Luis Artiga, who was appointed to the council 15 months ago to fill an unexpired term, said he had no idea how much he would be paid. When he received his first check, he thought it was "a miracle from God." Artiga, who is pastor of Bell Community Church, said he uses about half his salary to pay the church's mortgage. Rizzo received his bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a master's in public administration from Cal State East Bay. Council members hired Rizzo in 1993 from the High Desert city of Hesperia as interim chief administrative officer with a starting salary of $72,000 a year. By September 2004, he was being paid $300,000 a year. Ten months later, his salary jumped 47% to $442,000. His salary continued climbing $52,000 a year until July 1, 2008, when Rizzo received his usual salary increase and signed an addendum to his contract that gave him a 5% raise in September and guaranteed 12% increases each July. His last raise was $84,389.76. Next July, he will receive a $94,516 pay hike. Rizzo defended his salary and that of his staff and the council by saying they don't receive car or cellphone allowances and must pay their own way to out-of-town conferences. However, according to their contracts, Rizzo, Spaccia and Adams can be reimbursed for their expenses. Bell council members are also eligible for reimbursements as board members of several city commissions, according to city resolutions.

Adams, who said he spent $6,000 of his own money to buy furniture for his office, was hired after retiring as the police chief in Glendale. His salary of $215,304 more than doubled when he took the job in Bell. Spaccia was hired July 1, 2003, at $102,310. A year later, she was making $130,000. She currently earns $376,203 and gets the same 12% annual increases as Rizzo. Spaccia has been on leave since February while serving as acting city manager for Bell's troubled neighbor Maywood, with her salary being paid by Bell's taxpayers. "We have a neighbor in trouble," said Rizzo, a short heavy-set man with reddish-brown hair. "If your neighbor's yard is messed up, it brings down your property values. Is it a unique situation? Definitely." On top of his salary, Rizzo recently received an added boost the council voted to give him an extra week's vacation. He now gets five weeks.
Copyright 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Article #2

336 Voters Opened Bells Wallet: Bell council used little-noticed ballot measure to skirt state salary limits
The city asked voters to back conversion to charter status in 2005, the year the California Legislature limited the pay of council members statewide. Only 390 people in a city of 40,000 voted on the measure. By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times (Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.) July 23, 2010

The highly paid members of the Bell City Council were able to exempt themselves from state salary limits by placing a city charter on the ballot in a little-noticed special election that attracted fewer than 400 voters. Since passage of the measure, salaries for council members part-time employees have jumped more than 50%, from $61,992 a year to at least $96,996. The Los Angeles County district attorney has opened an inquiry into whether the salaries are lawful. A state law enacted in 2005 limits the pay of council members in "general law" cities, a category that includes most cities in Southern California. That law was passed in reaction to the high salaries that leaders in South Gate had bestowed on themselves earlier in the decade. But the year that law passed, the Bell City Council authorized a special election with only one item on the ballot a measure calling for Bell to convert to a "charter" city. The move was billed as one that would give the city more local control. The ballot language included no mention of the effect the change would have on council members' salaries. All five council members signed the ballot statement in favor of Measure A. It also was backed by City Manager Robert Rizzo, according to a council member in office at the time. Rizzo "sold the idea to me," former Councilman Victor Bello said. Council members subsequently signed off on contracts that have boosted Rizzo's pay to $787,637 annually, making him probably the highest paid city manager in the country. No one filed an argument against the measure, according to documents obtained by The Times. Rizzo has not returned calls to his cellphone or messages. The salaries paid by Bell have prompted growing scrutiny after The Times last week revealed that top city administrators were receiving high compensation. In addition to Rizzo, the assistant city manager and the police chief both earn far more than their counterparts in most other cities. The charter measure passed, 336 to 54, with the votes in favor amounting to less than 1% of the city's population of roughly 40,000. The majority of the ballots, 239, were absentee votes. The special election cost Bell $40,000 to $60,000, city officials said. Some council members insisted that the ballot measure was not motivated by a desire to increase salaries but did not cite any other ways the charter changed how Bell did business. "The idea of a charter is it gives a city flexibility, it gives us independence," said then-Mayor and current Councilman George Mirabal. "It enabled us to create our own vision for the future. That was the way I look at it then and now." David Demerjian, who heads the D.A.'s Public Integrity Division, expressed skepticism of that position.

"What explanation is there for why the city becomes a charter city," he asked. "Becoming a charter city certainly would give them the opportunity not to comply with that statute." Former Councilman Bello said "the way I understood it, we would have better control of governing ourselves. We were told we would make a little more money, but I didn't know we were going to get that much money." Records show that Bello, who resigned from the council last year, has continued to be paid for sitting on four city boards. According to resolutions the council approved in June 2008, commissioners must be council members. Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), who wrote the state law limiting council members' pay, said he did so because of the surreptitious pay raises he had seen in his city. "Then lo and behold, I find out a couple months later, Bell is doing an end run around it," he said. "The timing of this is clearly suspect." De la Torre's bill was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger on Sept. 6, 2005, and it became law Jan. 1, 2006. State law sets the limit on council pay for a city with Bell's population at $400 a month and limits the amount of money council members can receive for sitting on boards and commissions to $150 a month for each board. Bell's charter says its City Council members are to receive the same salaries as their counterparts in general law cities of the same size. In fact, they receive $150 for serving on the council. But the City Charter bypasses the limits that state law would impose on pay for boards and commissions. Bell council members receive the bulk of their salaries as payments for sitting on the Planning Commission, the Surplus Property Authority, the Public Finance Authority, and the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, at least $7,873.25 monthly. City minutes indicate that those boards do little work. Board meetings in Bell are supposed to take place during council meetings, although their names seldom appear in council minutes. When the boards held separate meetings, they sometimes lasted a minute. "That's why I wanted to limit stipends," De la Torre said. "That whole point of it was to say you couldn't pay ridiculous sums of money for going in and saying 'aye' and leaving." De La Torre estimated that if Bell were not a charter city, its council members would be paid $10,000 to $12,000 a year. In a letter responding to questions from Demerjian, Bell Assistant City Atty. William Priest, of the firm Best, Best and Krieger, said the city was following its charter regarding council pay. "The charter imposes no such limits with respect to their compensation for their service as members of the City's other commissions and boards," Priest wrote. The council members said in their argument in favor of Measure A that the state had taken $30 million in tax revenues from Bell over the previous 15 years "and they continue to reduce our ability to provide quality services and programs to the People of Bell. "We say 'ENOUGH.' "
Copyright 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Article #3

Bell officials reject deals from D.A.; critics say two years isnt enough
By: Richard Winton February 7, 2011

Lawyers for six current and former Bell leaders said their clients have rejected plea deals that would have brought them two-year prison terms in exchange for admitting guilt and paying back all the money they allegedly looted from the city treasury. The news emerged Monday as the six defendants -- council members Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal, and former council members Luis Artiga, George Cole and Victor Bello - faced the first day of a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the Bell corruption case. Cristina Garcia, a spokeswoman for BASTA, a citizens' group that has called for the council members to resign, said she will head to the courtroom if a plea deal for two years in prison is negotiated. "I think the community would not just be a little disappointed but outraged if that occurs," Garcia said. "The reality is the city is near bankruptcy. So many people in this community have been abused by these people and two years isn't enough. The people of Bell are going to be paying for generations for what they have done." Dmitry Gorin, a defense attorney and former deputy district attorney, said the plea offer is a sign that prosecutors are escalating pressure. Prosecutors, he said, may also be trying to gain their cooperation in hooking the bigger fish in this case - former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, who is charged with 50 felony counts of misappropriating public funds and corruption. Gorin said the apparent lack of a plea offer to Rizzo and former Assistant City Administrator Angela Spaccia reflects that they are the true targets of the trials. "It is a very high-profile case and in such cases they often start with high offers," Gorin said. "They are trying to make an example of these elected officials and they want to send them that message." Based on his experience, he said, two years in state prison is not a good deal and defense lawyers are likely to want to keep going with the case until a better offer is made. "The case against the council members is going to be lot tougher to make than against a professional like Rizzo," Gorin said. "The council members are not involved in the day-to-day running of City Hall and rely on the staff for advice. What they have done may be reprehensible but their lawyers will argue it was not illegal. They, after all, are elected council members not professionals." Gorin said the prosecutors have to show they knew they were doing something wrong. "Rizzo by contrast had his fingers in every cake," Gorin said. "The case against him is far stronger."
Copyright 2011, The Los Angeles Times

Article #4

Bell's Velez takes stand in colleagues' preliminary hearing on corruption charges

Bell City Councilman Lorenzo Velez testified Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court that he had no knowledge of his colleagues' near-$100,000 salaries, nor of the city commissions they had been paid to sit on. Velez, the lone council member not facing public corruption charges, was the first witness called in a preliminary hearing that involves six current and former City Council members. In his opening statement, prosecutor Edward Miller said Mayor Oscar Hernandez and current and former council members Luis Artiga, George Cole, Teresa Jacobo, Victor Bello and George Mirabal used the commissions to collect more than $1.2 million. "Bell's Solid Waste Authority was a solid waste of money," Miller said. One by one, Miller asked Velez if hed heard of Bells redevelopment agency, community housing authority or public financing authority before The Times reported city officials exorbitant salaries. Velez replied no each time. Velez, appointed to the City Council in October 2009, said he was paid $310.67 every two weeks and has since given up his salary. I wanted to encourage my colleagues to resign their salaries, he said. Afterward, Velez told The Times it was awkward to be deposed in front of his colleagues. "It's kind of sad to see them there," he said. "I'm not their judge. I hold no ill feelings toward anyone."

Copyright 2011, The Los Angeles Times