Bell’s voters have a real choice this time, thanks to the scandal

When last the people of Bell had a chance to pick their local leaders, the choices were pinched, the outcome all but predetermined. When Ali Saleh, who runs a family clothing business, filed candidacy papers for a council seat in 2009, his phone rang with what he described as a warning from then-City Administrator Robert Rizzo. “You don’t have a chance,” he recalled Rizzo saying.

Not much chance, anyway. During his long reign as city boss, Rizzo mastered a stratagem to keep his people in power, year after year. Council members resigned midterm, and he handpicked replacements, who enjoyed the momentum of incumbency when elections rolled around. In a city of 37,000 where few came out to vote, they could win with just 1,200 ballots.

“It’s always been appointed, resigned, appointed, resigned,” said Saleh, 35, who was trounced by two Rizzo-blessed incumbents in that election. “I was slaughtered.”

Now, Rizzo is at the center of a sweeping corruption case, and six past or present council members are charged with looting public funds. They are a much-vilified pack rarely seen in public anymore, with a court order to avoid City Hall as they await trial. Public disgust has energized candidates in the small city southeast of Los Angeles, where democracy had grown moribund. All five council seats are up for grabs in the March 8 special election, and 18 candidates are running in the most crowded, clamorous race in memory.

Whoever wins, many of the candidates say, ordinary residents have at least reclaimed their voice, and perhaps their city.

But Bell is now financially crippled. And tough choices — such as whether to save $4 million a year by disbanding the city’s 84-year-old Police Department and turning operations over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — will face the incoming council. Saleh is on the ballot again, this time with a fighting chance. He wants to keep the Police Department and revamp the city’s business district, which had been hobbled by arbitrary fees and taxes.

“Our city’s like a ghost town because of the Rizzo regime,” Saleh said.

Cristina Garcia, spokeswoman for the Bell Assn. to Stop the Abuse — a civic group formed in response to the scandal — has been sending activists door to door, urging people to vote. Two years ago, there were 9,395 voters registered, but fewer than a fourth cast ballots. This time, with 10,485 registered, “I’ll be shocked if we don’t get 60% turnout,” Garcia said.

Teresa Jacobo, one of the current council members charged with misappropriating public funds, is fighting a recall effort. Recalls were launched against other arrested council members — Luis Artiga, Oscar Hernandez and George Mirabal — but Artiga resigned, and Hernandez and Mirabal aren’t seeking reelection. Lorenzo Velez, the lone council member not swept up in the corruption case, is seeking another term. But most expect a completely new council.

Garcia said she hopes voter engagement endures. “Most people are inspired during the moment, then the lack of real change disenchants them. I’m hoping Bell will be a model city for many other cities,” she said.

The election has uncorked a flow of campaign money uncommon in small-town races, some of it originating far outside Bell. Gwilym McGrew, a retired Woodland Hills businessman, has given about $60,000 to three candidates seeking to disband the Police Department.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has decried his contributions as “tea party money,” though McGrew said he is not a member and became interested in the race only because of the salary scandal.

Meanwhile, the Bell police union, fighting to elect candidates who will keep the department alive, said it expects to spend $30,000 to $40,000 on the contest.

On a recent night at the Bell Community Center, where hundreds of residents packed the room to meet candidates, the mood was buoyant and tinged with anger. It was hardly necessary, but Maria Blanco, a representative of the California Community Foundation, which co-hosted the forum, reminded people of what had happened in Bell. She called it “el robo de una ciudad.” The theft of a city, she said.

“There’s energy here, there’s hope here — look at this place,” said candidate Ana Maria Quintana, a real estate lawyer who recently moved to Bell from neighboring Cudahy and decided to run after being “shocked and outraged” by the scandal.

As a glimpse of municipal democracy in all its messy charm, the event would have been hard to top. Candidates ranged from the relatively polished, like Quintana, who went to Yale, to the seriously tongue-tied, like Donald Tavares, 48, who drives a Coke truck and has never run for office. On stage, he managed to say that public safety is his top priority before losing his train of thought.

Afterward, he admitted he was flustered, facing the packed room. “I know what I’m thinking, and it’s just not coming out,” said Tavares, a 21-year Bell resident, who seemed to be enjoying himself nonetheless. “I’m really new to this environment.” Still, his friends told him he should run, and he figured, Why not? He put his chances of victory at 90%.

Then there is Danny Harber, 66, a retired baker running for Jacobo’s seat, who told a joke about a guy offering him Viagra — the punch line was that he didn’t need it — and seemed unconcerned about giving offense when he told the crowd what it was like to meet fellow residents: “Some are interesting, some are boring, but they’re all concerned citizens.”

Like other candidates, he said anger at the alleged corruption had pushed him into politics. “I never dreamed I’d do anything like this,” he said. He supports the Police Department but thinks it’s top-heavy, with too many captains and lieutenants. Having walked the whole city in recent weeks, he thinks he can’t lose.

“I’ve had a lot of people say they’re undecided, but I’ve never had an outright no,” he said, adding that he didn’t think a council job would be easy. “I’ve got a feeling the first year, until we turn things around, is going to be a thankless job. The people in the city are going to smell blood in the water if something isn’t done soon.”

Candidate Mario Rivas, a recycling coordinator for the city of Huntington Beach, finished a distant third of six candidates when he ran in 2009. Back then, he recalled, there were no candidate forums. They were lucky to gather a few concerned citizens in a church or garage.

“It was the perception that everything was clean, everything was fine,” he said. “The city made it hard to get involved. There was no information.”

Velez, who is fighting to keep his seat, introduced himself to the crowd on a prerecorded DVD with a smile and this remark: “I’m very proud to be the only Bell council member who was not charged with any crime in the recent salary scandals.”

There were mutters of disparagement in the crowd as Velez spoke. He had recently endured an extended stay on the witness stand in Los Angeles County Superior Court, where the other Bell leaders were facing charges of misappropriating city money. Six defense lawyers had taken turns grilling him, one reducing him to stammer: “If ignorance is a crime, I guess I’m guilty.” He said the experience left him “traumatized” and unable to get out of bed the next morning.

Candidate Janice Bass is a retired schoolteacher who served as campaign manager for her husband, George, a former Bell councilman. With the approach of the election, she sensed fatigue among the residents. “There’s just too many people [running], and I think voters are tired,” she said. “I was calling people. It was, ‘Yes, yes, yes, goodbye.’ They’re burned out.”

Bass said that she wants council members to take classes in the state’s open-meeting law and ethics, and that public employees should contribute more to their pensions.

“I do believe Bell can be saved,” she said. Voters “haven’t really had much of a choice in nine or 10 years.”

Bell is a majority-Latino city, and most of the candidates spoke to the crowd in both English and Spanish. Some used only Spanish. This prompted a woman in the crowd, Donna Gannon, 57, to leap to her feet and remind everyone that some voters speak English. “We’re here too!” she cried.

A Bell resident for more than 30 years and a retired casino cashier, Gannon had been following the corruption case closely, even showing up in the downtown courtroom when she could. This night she carried two colorful signs decorated with hand-drawn pigs, each with the name of a disgraced Bell leader on its side. Some were feeding at what she called the Golden Trough.

“The pigs are going to the slaughter, and the hogs are going to jail,” she said. It was a nod to the barnyard imagery in an e-mail exchange between Rizzo’s former deputy and the then-incoming police chief; the subject was their generous salaries. “Pigs get fat … hogs get slaughtered!!!,” one e-mail warned.

Regardless of who wins, Gannon said, pointing to her posters, she likes the direction of the city. “It’s a celebration, because we get rid of all this.”

christopher.goffard@latimes.com