CA files lawsuit against leaders of troubled city

CA files lawsuit against leaders of troubled city

Residents of Bell, Calif., wait outside City Hall Wednesday Sept. 15, 2010 in Bell. The California attorney general's office sued eight former and current Bell city officials on Wednesday, accusing them of fraud, conspiracy and wasting taxpayers money by approving huge salary increases for themselves.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The California attorney general's office sued eight former and current Bell city officials on Wednesday, accusing them of fraud, conspiracy and wasting taxpayers money by approving huge salary increases for themselves.

The suit demands city officials, including former City Manager Robert Rizzo and three current council members, return hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bloated salaries.

The legal action also calls for a reduction of pension benefits that were based on the high salaries.

Attorney General Jerry Brown told reporters the officials defrauded the public and enriched themselves by taking salaries he said were "enormous and obscene" and not anywhere in line with those paid to officials in cities of comparable size.

"You can't just take the public's money and give it to yourself or give it to your friendly employees or members of the city council just because you want to," said Brown, a candidate for governor. "There's a standard and that standard is that the pay must be commensurate with the duty and the work."

The attorney general added that his investigators are also looking at other cities where the annual salaries of officials exceed $300,000 and will ask legislators to reform salary and pension practices.

On Wednesday, his office issued a subpoena ordering the small, neighboring city of Vernon to produce its employee compensation records. Those records "may pertain to possible violations of various state laws and the waste and misuse of public funds," the subpoena stated.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the former administrator in Vernon, an industrial city with only about 90 residents, was paid more than $1 million a year.

Brown's office and the Los Angeles County district attorney opened investigations after learning Bell had some of the highest-paid officials in the nation even though one in six residents of the city of 40,000 live in poverty. Bell also faces a federal probe into whether it violated the civil rights of Hispanics by deliberately targeting their cars for towing to raise revenue.

Along with Rizzo, those named in the lawsuit filed Wednesday are former assistant city manager Angela Spaccia; ex-Police Chief Randy Adams; council members Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal; and former council members Victor Bello and George Cole.

Rizzo was making nearly $800,000 a year. Spaccia collected $376,288 a year, and Adams was paid $457,000 a year. All three resigned after their salaries were disclosed.

Rizzo's salary had been raised by the council 16 times since 1993, with an average increase of 14 percent a year, according o Brown. In 2005 alone, the council boosted his salary 47 percent.

Phone messages left for Rizzo and council members were not immediately returned.

Four of Bell's five City Council members were paid nearly $100,000 a year before they took a recent cut. Cities of similar size pay their council members about $5,000 a year.

Three Bell council members - Hernandez, Jacobo and Mirabal - were named in Brown's lawsuit. The fourth, Luis Artiga, is not, and Brown declined to say why.

Artiga, like the other three, is the target of a recall campaign in Bell. On Tuesday, he announced his support for the recall and said he would resign from the council if the others did.

A leader of the recall, Ali Saleh, said his organization was pleased with Wednesday's developments but also wants to see the district attorney eventually bring criminal charges.

"We want some of them in jail," Saleh said.