Rebuilding Bell

The saga of Bell’s rise and fall has the makings of a Greek tragedy. For the character with the fatal flaw, look no further than former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, once the town’s hero. When Rizzo arrived in 1993, Bell was nearly bankrupt. After 10 years under his stewardship, the city was financially healthy, with a tidy reserve, manicured parks and a menu of social and recreational services.

Rizzo’s compensation grew along with Bell’s successes, but it increased alarmingly after 2004 and finally reached about $1.5 million a year. Other city leaders were showered with almost equally absurd salaries and perks, which they took pains to keep a secret. But paying for the affluence of a few insiders meant pillaging the city that Rizzo had built up — imposing phony fees on businesses, illegally raising taxes, and towing cars on pretexts and charging owners three times the usual rate to get them back, according to state reports. City Council members pulled in nearly $100,000 a year for sitting on commissions and boards that actually convened for a minute or two, or not at all. Eight Bell officials have been arrested and charged with misappropriation of public funds, including most of the existing council and, of course, Rizzo.

As the March 8 election approaches, and with it, races for all five City Council seats, the people of Bell are still trying to figure out how this came to pass. Was Rizzo an able city manager whose growing power and hubris led him to cross terrible lines? Or was it all a greedy plot from the start? Rizzo isn’t telling, and the only other voices from Bell’s leadership have been a Greek chorus of council members singing, “We didn’t know!”

These days, the disgraced council seldom pulls together a quorum, and the city is on the verge of insolvency. Repeated audits have shown that major cuts to basic services must be made, and that the city might not have the money to retain its own Police Department.

It would be too easy to point to Bell as an exception, a majority-immigrant city of close to 40,000 people who know too little about government and who were working so hard to support their families that they paid scant attention. But there are a lot of potential Bells of one sort or another, cities where voters take democracy for granted. When was the last time any of us attended a city council meeting? A gathering of a planning board? The Bell scandal exposed statewide problems — audit firms that are supposed to keep officials honest but that rubber-stamp their worst financial shenanigans, the state retirement system that wasn’t watching the store and legislators who, even after an eruption of voter outrage, voted down two bills that would finally have provided easily accessible information about public salaries and benefits.

In other words, there’s a lot more to fixing what ailed Bell than just fixing Bell. But right now, the top priority is to return democracy to the city. There is a long list of City Council candidates running for open seats in the coming election, and that alone is a remarkable situation. For years it has been the habit in Bell for council members to leave office in midterm, allowing the council to appoint new members who then enjoy the benefits of incumbency.

The March ballot is a complicated one for Bell residents. There are recall measures against four of the five current council members (several of which are moot because the incumbents’ terms are up or they have chosen not to run). There are 18 people running for all five seats. Some of the races are general election races for full-term seats; others are races to fill out unexpired terms.

Most of the candidates have little political or public experience. In interviews with The Times’ editorial board, they voiced similar concerns and similar plans: To get rid of the capricious fees and fines that prompted many firms to flee the city, leaving what residents describe as a “ghost town” in the business district. To raise the level of public engagement by holding town halls and revamping the city’s website.

Where they differ is on what to do about the Bell Police Department, which Rizzo was trying to disband when he was effectively forced out of his job. To some extent, the police cooperated with Rizzo on the excessive car towing, but when he took action against the department, they played a role in exposing his misdeeds. The city could save an estimated $4 million, enough to overcome its deficit, by contracting with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Candidates who have been associated with a civic group that arose in the wake of the scandal, the Bell Assn. to Stop the Abuse, usually take the position that the city must have its own Police Department. BASTA has received much of its support from the Bell Police Officers Assn.; many officers would lose their jobs if the city contracts with an outside agency. Three of the candidates who think the city should disband the Police Department are running as a slate called Justice for Bell and have the endorsement of the Bell Citizens Committee, a group that Supervisor Gloria Molina and former Assemblyman Hector de la Torre helped organize. There are some independent candidates whose opinions vary but who generally voice a desire to keep the Police Department — but only if the city can afford it without raising taxes.

The Times looked for candidates who appear to have the sophistication and skills to keep an eye on the functions of municipal government. We also think the residents of Bell would be better off if no single faction swept the election. At this point, Bell needs council members who challenge one another as well as their employees. It is unclear whether the city can afford or should even want to keep its Police Department. A mix of opinions on the council would maximize the chances of a decision made on the facts, not on campaign support.

??Teresa Jacobo recall: Yes ?Replacement: Coco Ceja

Jacobo is the only incumbent council member fighting her recall, even as she faces criminal charges. A yes vote means that she would be recalled — a fate she fully deserves. It’s hard to guess why she’s trying to keep her seat, considering the number of council meetings she has failed to attend. If she didn’t knowingly misappropriate funds, she at least failed to ask even basic questions. Ceja is a 17-year resident of Bell and the director of volunteers at a hospital. She shows a strong command of the issues at stake in Bell’s future, has creative ideas about how to solve them and appears to retain an open mind about the Police Department, saying she’d like Bell to have its own police force but doesn’t know whether the city can afford it. Ceja says she voted against making Bell a charter city in the little-noticed election that opened the door for the lush salaries and other perks.

??Recalls against Luis Artiga, Oscar? Hernandez and George Mirabal:? No endorsement

Hernandez and Mirabal are not running for reelection. Artiga has resigned. The outcomes of the recall votes are moot.

??Artiga’s replacement:? Ana Maria Quintana

Quintana is a lawyer who moved to Bell from neighboring Cudahy a few months ago, in part to run for office. But she attended Bell schools and has lived in that area for much of her life. Quintana has an impressive resume that includes a master’s degree in economics and several years of work overseas. Her sophisticated outlook and legal expertise would be helpful additions to a council that must know how to analyze official documents and demand accountability.

??General election: Mario Rivas, ?Ali Saleh, Nestor Enrique Valencia

Rivas is the recycling coordinator for the city of Huntington Park. Running on the Justice for Bell slate, he has been critical of the goings-on at City Hall for the past few years and thinks the city would be better off contracting out for its police services, not only to save money but because of what he sees as a “cloud” over the department for its role in improperly towing cars. He is clear-thinking; as an employee of another city, he knows about the operations of municipal government, and a seat on the council would give him a podium for spreading his interest in environmentally sound living.

A longtime critic of Rizzo, Saleh helped found BASTA and previously ran for City Council. He is a lifelong resident of the city and owns a clothing business. Like most BASTA-related candidates, he wants to keep the Police Department. He has specific and practical proposals for making local government more accessible to residents, including automated calls, youth programs and occasional extended hours for both city employees and council members so that working residents can speak one-on-one with city officials.

Valencia, Rivas’ companion on the Justice for Bell slate, is a healthcare manager who ran for City Council twice before and who raised concerns about abuses at City Hall long before they received widespread attention. He has a detailed grasp of the misconduct and firm ideas about how to reform it. His views of the Police Department are deeply negative; he sees it as fully involved in the abuses and thinks a switch to outside law enforcement would restore trust in the city.