Whipped Cream Difficulties

Here’s a surprise from the Bell trial: former council member Victor Bello, mister “$100,000 a year as assistant food bank coordinator” was a rat.

Victor Bello had written a letter to the Los Angeles County district attorney with allegations of misconduct in Bell on May 6, 2009, but was not interviewed until 10 1/2 months later, district attorney’s investigator Maria Grimaldo testified Wednesday. She was not asked the reason for the delay nor what the allegations were.

Here’s a great exchange:

“Your monthly salary as a council member is how much a month? investigator Mike Holguin asks. “You said $3,900?”
“No, no, no, no,” Bello replies, according to the transcript. “It’s about $100,000.”
“A $100,000 a year?” Grimaldo asks.
“That’s as a council member for, uh, for Bell?” Holguin adds.

$3,900 a month is what Bello expected to receive as his pension from Bell.

According to the LAT, Grimaldo is the final prosecution witness, so I guess we can expect the defense testimony to start soon. I’d recommend popping a fresh batch of popcorn for that.

There was the local resident who was given a document with false City Hall salaries. There was the food bank coordinator who had no idea one of his volunteers was being paid nearly six figures. And there was the councilman who didn’t realize he was making just pennies on the dollar compared to his colleagues.

Among the witnesses: Bell resident Roger Ramirez. In 2008, Ramirez put in a public records request for the salaries of the mayor and council members.

Ramirez testified that he told [Rebecca] Valdez [the city clerk] the figures didn’t match what he thought was true and that the city clerk appeared worried someone would overhear him.
“The only thing I can tell you is the expression on her face was concern and she looked around with her eyes and didn’t say a word,” he said.

Also, Ricardo Gonzalez:

Ricardo Gonzalez testified that Rizzo hired him in 2005 as the director of business development and relations. He said there was no job description but that Rizzo told him his duties included coordinating Bell’s food bank, which operated as a nonprofit and relied on volunteers.
Gonzalez said all of the defendants volunteered at the food bank and he was unaware at the time that anyone was paid for such work.

The significance of this is that former council member Victor Bello was being paid $100,000 a year as “assistant food bank coordinator”.

And Lorenzo Velez:

Velez testified that he didn’t even realize the council position was paid until he received his first paycheck. He said that Rizzo told him the money was a stipend for expenses he might incur. Earlier testimony has revealed that Rizzo instructed the city clerk to prepare Velez’s salary contract to be a fraction of his colleagues’ pay.

Velez is the only council member who hasn’t been charged; his salary was $310 every two weeks.

Yesterday’s development from the Bell trial: patented Rizzo confuse-o-vision!

Bell’s former top administrator went to great lengths to confuse City Council members, purposely making resolutions ambiguous and complex so they’d have trouble understanding the documents, a prosecution witness in the city’s corruption trial testified Friday.

Lourdes Garcia, the $422,000 a year “former director of administrative services” went on to testify that “former City Manager Robert Rizzo regarded council members as unsophisticated and easily manipulated”. And the things “Ratso” Rizzo did were “all justifiable because ‘it was for the greater good of the organization.'”

It gets even better.

In one instance, Rizzo complained after hearing that an employee was taking an ethics class.
“Mr. Rizzo was always giving me directions that gave me the perspective that he did not want ethics in the organization,” she said.

Lourdes Garcia, Bell’s former “director of administrative services”, who was paid $422,000 a year in that job, is on the stand now.

Remember former councilman Victor Bello? The guy who was paid a six-figure salary in his job as “assistant to the food bank coordinator”?

Garcia

…testified Thursday that she was ordered to draw up a contract for a departing council member that paid him nearly $100,000 a year, even though the job he was taking could have been handled by a volunteer.

Garcia also testified that Robert “Ratso” Rizzo

…told her in 2008 to prepare a document understating his salary and the pay of council members.
“What’s not true on the document?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller asked.
“The salary of the council,” Garcia said. “It doesn’t represent the full amount they were getting at the time.”
“What about the city administrator officer?”
“No, it’s not the right amount, ” Garcia said. “It’s only partial.”

I’m worried about the way things are going. So far, it seems to be “all Rizzo, all the time”, and there’s been very little discussion of what the indicted council members actually did (or did not) do. Of course, we’ve only heard from two witnesses so far. But if this keeps up, I’m concerned that the council members are going to get off by throwing Rizzo and Spaccia under the bus. And then I can see Rizzo and Spaccia getting off by, in turn, stating that they were following the directions given to them by the city council members, who would be free to testify for Rizzo and Spaccia.

Rebecca Valdez is still on the stand in the Bell corruption trial. Yesterday’s revelation:

After thumbing through binders filled with documents from 2005 to 2010, the city clerk said she detected about eight agendas from 2005 to 2006 that had forged signatures.

Valdez states that she believes Theresa Diaz, the previous city clerk (who, as you may recall, moved out of the city in 2004, but allegedly continued to act as the city clerk until 2007) forged her name on the documents in question.

This exchange is also amusing:

…the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, which Deputy Dist. Atty Edward Miller has labeled a “sham.”
On Wednesday Miller read the ordinance for that authority, which said it could be created “for the purpose of acquiring, constructing, maintaining or operating an enterprise for the collection, treatment or disposal of waste.”
Miller then asked Valdez: “Have you seen an enterprise for the collection, treatment or disposal of waste in the city of Bell?”
“No,” she replied.

I was hoping to have more on the Bell trial for you. I do, but it wasn’t what I was expecting: one of the alternate jurors called in sick yesterday and the trial was postponed.

But I do have excellent news. Remember Cudahy? The bimbo and the badge? Bribes in the Denny’s? (If you don’t remember Cudahy, previously.)

David Silva, the former mayor of Cudahy, was sentenced yesterday.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Akrotirianakis recommended that he receive 41 months in prison.

He got one year of prison time, three years of probation, 1,500 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution. (He was convicted of taking $17,000 in bribes from someone who wanted to open a medical marijuana dispensary.)

I missed this previously, but the same LAT article notes that Angel Perales, “Cudahy’s former head of code enforcement and acting city manager”, who was also implicated in this case, got five years probation.

Akrotirianakis had recommended that Perales serve two years in prison.

I find it interesting that the judge in both cases ignored the sentencing recommendation and gave both gentlemen lower sentences than requested. I find it especially interesting that Perales appears to have gotten away with no prison time.

By the way, Osvaldo Conde (of bimbo and badge fame) is up for sentencing on February 25th. And I also missed this: “…the former mayor of Santa Fe Springs, Joseph Serrano Sr., was sentenced to two years in prison for taking $11,500 in bribes from the marijuana dispensary owner.”

As noted previously, the trial of six former city council members from Bell has begun. The jury has been seated, opening statements have been stated, and the first testimony has been testified.

The first witness was Rebecca Valdez. Ms. Valdez was the former city clerk of Bell. The LAT notes that she has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony.

And what did she have to say? Basically, as city clerk, she was supposed to take notes on the council meetings,

including marking the start and end time of the various boards on which council members served, such as the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.
“Were there City Council meetings where only some of the authorities met?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller asked.
“Yes,” Valdez said.
“Were there City Council meetings where none of the authorities met?”
“Yes.”

(This is significant because the charges against the members involve “taking huge salaries to serve on board and commissions that rarely met and did little, if any, work.”)

Valdez also verified salary documents for former council members. One listed former Councilwoman Teresa Jacobo’s monthly salary as $7,666. Another showed an increase that bumped her salary to $8,083 a month.
In contrast, [Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller] then showed the most recent contract for Lorenzo Velez, who was on the council when the salary scandal broke. Velez, the lone council member not charged in the case, was appointed to the council in 2009 and given a salary of only $673.

And:

Later, Valdez testified that at Rizzo’s request, she knowingly gave a document listing incorrect salary information for city officials to a resident who had filed a public records request.

The defense attorney for one of the former council members got Valdez to admit that Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, the city manager, loaned her $48.000 for a down payment on a house; he also asserted that the $48,000 was city money, not a personal loan from Ratso.

Later, [Alex] Kessel [defense attorney for former Councilman George Mirabal] said Rizzo “insulated himself from the council members. Any wrongdoing was done without their knowledge.”

It is still early in the trial, but it looks to me like the defense strategy is going to be “it was all Rizzo! We didn’t know what was going on! Ratso hid stuff from us!” We’ll see how effective this is. I’m thinking it probably won’t be very effective; if you’re taking $8,000 a month for meetings of boards that never meet, you’ve got to know something is up, and throwing Ratso under the bus isn’t going to help.

If I were Ratso, right about now I might be thinking about making a deal with the DA to testify against the council members, in return for a lighter sentence. If I’m the DA, I want Rizzo and Spaccia to do time, but I might be willing to make a deal with Rizzo (or Spaccia) if it means I can nail a bunch of corrupt elected officials. Ideally, I want everyone involved in the Bell scandal to be introduced to the joys of busting rocks, but sometimes you’ve got to make a trade. Personally, I’d rather send elected politicians to jail than appointed city officials, if I have to make a choice.

Back in August, I discussed the case of Omar Bradley, former mayor of Compton. Bradley was convicted of “misappropriation of public funds” in 2004, but had his conviction overturned last year and is awaiting retrial.

But Bradley isn’t just sitting around waiting for the retrial. He’s keeping busy.

“How?” you ask.

He’s running for mayor of Compton.

Per the LAT, both his retrial and the election are scheduled for the same month (April),  which “sets up the potential for Bradley to win office and then quickly lose it again if he is convicted a second time on charges of misappropriation of public funds”.

Also interesting: Bradley is one of twelve people running against the current mayor.

Among the challengers are former child star Rodney Allen Rippy, civil rights attorney and former Black Panther B. Kwaku Duren, former Compton City Clerk Charles Davis, and longtime City Hall critics William Kemp and Lynn Boone.

Rodney Allen Rippy? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.

We haven’t had one of these in a while. Truth be told, things were moving slowly over the holidays.

But they are heating up: the trial of six former members of the Bell city council begins today. (Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and his assistant, Angela Spaccia, will be tried later this year.)

And how is the city of Bell doing?

The city’s general fund has been slashed to $12 million from $16 million, largely because a handful of highly paid employees are now gone, and the budget is balanced. Council meetings are streamed online in a city where the workings of government were once opaque. The city has cut fees for trash pickup, building permits and business licenses that had ballooned under Rizzo.

On the other hand, Bell also faces protracted litigation, on which it is spending an estimated $1.5 million a year.

“If all the litigation stuff were solved today, I’d tell you Bell has a bright future, and we can pay our bills,” said [Doug] Willmore [the new city manager – DB], who estimates he spends a third of his time on lawsuits. “There are all these things that could happen that could bankrupt the city.”
Among the worries, he said, is that Bell will be made to pay the legal fees of the former city leaders, who claim the city should foot the bill because their alleged misdeeds occurred as part of their official duties.
“That’s probably $5 million easily,” Willmore said.

More:

Willmore said that when he arrived, the city hadn’t reconciled a bank statement in two years. “Under Rizzo, the lack of accounting was just staggering,” he said. “I’ve inherited scandals before, but certainly nothing like this.

Also:

Bell still has the second-highest property tax in Los Angeles County, after only Beverly Hills, and a 10% utility tax, about twice that of most cities.

In spite of that, business owners say conditions in Bell have improved vastly: “…a new restaurant was recently able to obtain a license just two days after an inspection from the county health department — a process that could have taken three months in the Rizzo era”

If they keep this up, and can get past the legal issues, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bell turn into one of the few bright spots in California.