A local solution for Bell

In his Oct. 12 Times Op-Ed article, “Fixing Bell,” respected Ventura City Manager Rick Cole calls on Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to request a court-appointment receiver to manage the troubled Los Angeles County city. One of the online comments to the article says, “While you’re at it Jerry, appoint one for the state as well for the recent budget fiasco.” Exactly. The state is not a model of governance for California. Bell should not expect salvation from Sacramento.

The solution for Bell is within view, as residents are in the process of recalling four discredited City Council members. Residents gathered more than 4,000 signatures for each council member, well over the 2,200 required for a recall election. The city has a scheduled regular vote for March 8, 2011, and the recall election could also occur by then.

The concern is, then, how Bell should be governed in the meantime.

Residents have made it clear that governance by the discredited council members who are being criminally prosecuted is unacceptable. And as Cole points out, having the staff appointed by the discredited officials run Bell is also not desirable; plus, they lack power to govern without a council.

It is against this backdrop that Cole argues for the attorney general to have a receiver appointed by a judge, a move Bell’s city attorney says is unconstitutional. As The Times has reported, experts cannot remember an entire California city ever having been placed under court receivership.

There is another way forward for Bell, as the city does have several assets. For starters, there is one remaining City Council member untainted by the current scandal and who has been active in the community for years: Lorenzo Velez. A second and more important asset is an aroused citizenry that has now sensed its power and wants to put things right.

One council member has resigned, and another may soon do so. Why couldn’t Velez work with the two major citizens groups that have been active on this issue to interview respected community members willing to serve on a transition council, which would serve until the March election? The two candidates selected could be appointed by the remaining council members, whereupon the last two being prosecuted would also resign. The two new appointees would then serve with Velez.

The attorney general has proposed a monitor program that the community group I represent, the Bell Assn. to Stop the Abuse (BASTA), supports. But Brown’s proposal doesn’t deal with the governance issue.

State law provides that a city cannot have a majority of its council be appointed instead of elected. But between now and the 2011 election, it’s the best we can do. If the attorney general sees this as a reasonable interim solution, who would raise a legal objection?

Cole blasts our community-based solution, pointing out that the recall efforts are supported by the local police union. This denigrates the hundreds of Bell residents who have been showing up for months at every public meeting and walking the streets to get 4,000 signatures from voters. Do financial contributions from a union that wants to restore good local government contaminate this effort?

Everyone can be a winner here. The attorney general can support a locally initiated solution instead of a state takeover and earn the gratitude of Bell’s residents. Councilman Velez can demonstrate the leadership lacking before this crisis. The community groups can come together and overcome the bickering. And finally, the disgraced council members, whose cooperation on appointments and resigning is the big hurdle, can bow out on a high note by putting the community’s needs ahead of their own.

Cole needs to talk to Bell citizens. I was particularly struck by one young man who told me of his experience serving in Afghanistan. He wondered what he was doing there until he witnessed Afghans risking their lives to participate in what we often take for granted: an election. Upon returning to America, he found an unbelievable abuse of democracy in his hometown. He vowed to be engaged and work with his community until the corruption in Bell is rooted out.

So what’s the answer for Bell: to have a judge appoint an unknown outside receiver to govern the city until March or later; or should the veterans, teachers, clerks, laborers and other citizens of Bell be allowed to complete the process of taking back their city with their own hands?

Imagine standing in the Bell City Council chambers a month from now as more than 1,000 people cheer the swearing in of their new leaders. That would complete an unbelievable process of community empowerment, something the whole nation could applaud.

David J. Aleshire, of Aleshire & Wynder LLP, has served as city attorney or assistant city attorney for 12 different California cities. He is representing BASTA pro bono in the recall.