BELL — Four of the five City Council members, who angered residents when it was revealed they were making about $100,000 a year, have been served with recall papers.

Formal notices of intent to recall were served during a special City Council meeting Aug. 4 to Mayor Oscar Hernandez, Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo and Councilmen George Mirabal and Luis Artiga by a group called Bell Association to Stop the Abuse.

The officials have since reduced their pay by 90 percent — two of them saying they will work for free — but have said they will not resign.

A fifth council member, Lorenzo Velez, appointed last year, has called for the four to resign. Velez, who is not targeted for recall, said he has received the usual $600 a month pay and was not aware of the income of his colleagues.
Christina Garcia, a member of the group, said the residents hope to start gathering signatures for the recall in about a month, after required legal actions have taken place. That includes a response by the council members and publication of the charges.

Garcia said her group needs signatures of about 25 percent of the Bell registered voters, or 2,500.

The Aug. 4 meeting was called to accept the resignation of Best, Best and Krieger as city attorneys and hire James Casso, an attorney with Meyers Nave of Los Angeles.

Casso has served as city attorney for Pico Rivera, among other cities.
The attorney could not be reached for comment.

“The council is leading the charge to bring fiscal integrity and government transparency back to our community,” said Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo.

“I am calling on Bell’s interim Chief Administrative Officer Pedro Carrillo and Bell’s interim City Attorney James Casso to execute the council’s directive to institute good government reforms and usher in a new day in Bell’s city administration,” she said.

In a separate statement, Velez once again called for the immediate resignation of the other four.

“Enough is enough and far more than the citizens of Bell should have to tolerate,” he said. “Everyday new disclosures reveal that the city officials have been raping the city of Bell and they have clearly betrayed the public trust put in them.

“The city of Bell must clean house. Current city officials have been dragging their feet in providing Bell residents, state authorities and myself of pertinent information concerning salaries, land deals and property owned by the city of Bell.

“I believe there is a conscious effort to withhold information from me and I frequently learn about the latest revelation, like our citizens, in the [news]paper. I am concerned that not only have they dragged their feet, but there are also allegations that officials may have or attempted to destroy documents that would further reveal the extent of our city’s crisis.

“The current administration and the other four members of City Council under recall must resign immediately. They have no credibility and they have made Bell the laughing stock of the nation.

“The only decent thing for them to do is resign. If they have any integrity remaining, they would save the city the cost of a recall and resign. If they don’t, I am fully behind the recall.”

Velez, who has welcomed ongoing investigations by the county and state, said he would ask the state Attorney General’s Office to immediately step in as the city’s interim city attorney, instead of Casso, saying “outside intervention is needed.”

He also said he would ask the California League of Cities to recommend three recently retired city managers who are seasoned and experienced and are willing and can act as the city’s interim city administrator.

Velez said he would like to make the city manager appointment at the next regular meeting Monday.

“I will ask that an item be placed on the Aug. 16 agenda to authorize the [new interim city manager) to hire a forensic financial expert to do an analysis of all city contracts and expenditures over a minimum of the last two years.

Besides the high pay for the council members, many residents were outraged last month when the Los Angeles Times revealed that 17-year City Manager Robert Rizzo was earning about $800,000 a year while Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia, currently on loan to the city of Maywood, received approximately $376,300. Former Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams, hired by Rizzo last year, was earning $457,000 annually.

New figures say with benefits Rizzo’s pay would actually be about $1.5 million a year.

Former City Attorney Ed Lee, who was the Bell legal counsel since 2006, is now out of the picture, although he has not been accused of any wrongdoing to date.

Lee, also attorney for Downey since 2007, was fired from that city July 29 because of his association with Bell.

In a formal statement Aug. 2, Lee said he had resigned from his law firm of Best, Best and Krieger and would focus on helping Bell deal with its legal challenges.

Downey has retained its former city attorney, Charles Vose, as interim counsel.

Meanwhile, Bell’s current interim city manager, Pedro Carrillo, said at a press conference last Friday that he has complied with the demand of state Controller John Chiang to post the complete compensation packages of salaries and benefits of Bell City employees at the city’s website, www.bellcityclerk.org.

“We have established new protocols to ensure Bell is an open government and released all current city staff salaries and compensation,” Carrillo said.

“Due to the voluminous requests for public documents regarding the former administration, I have also ordered the finance director to provide the total compensation packages for the former CAO, the former assistant CAO and the former police chief. That information is now available,” Carrillo said in a formal statement.

“In addition, I directed the new city attorney to launch a full investigation to analyze the legality of compensation packages for all employees as well as the departed administrators.”