Whipped Cream Difficulties

You know the classic joke about the child who kills both parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court because…right?

Yeah. Well, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, late of the City of Bell, is suing the city.

The suit also alleges that the city did not have “cause” to fire Rizzo, who faces a lengthy list of criminal charges over his use of public funds, because he has not been convicted.

“Rizzo has not been convicted of a felony or a crime of moral turpitude, or at all. As such, the city did not have and does not have ’cause’ to terminate Rizzo under the agreement,” the complaint said.

Just saying. It doesn’t look like they were good luck for Whitey Bulger.

Seriously, I’ve been meaning to throw up a link to this long and entertaining Boston Globe article about Whitey and his life on the run for a couple of days now. It has everything, including a former Miss Iceland who apparently ratted Whitey out. (My mother also forwarded a link saying that Miss Iceland is going to collect the $2 million reward offered by the FBI. Good luck to her: I hope Whitey’s friends, if he has any left, don’t reach as far as Iceland.)

Joseph Hyungmin Son, who played “Random Task” in the Austin Powers movies, is doing time in prison “after having been convicted of torture and sentenced to life in prison without parole in connection with the 1990 Christmas Eve rape of a woman out walking her dog.”

I think that was generally well known. That’s not the WTF moment.

According to the LAT, he’s now suspected of killing his cellmate. He’s been in prison for a little over three weeks now…

How do you top a college professor accused of pimping?

Would you believe a college professor who led a chapter of the Devils Diciples motorcycle gang, and who is charged with dealing meth?

The six-month investigation culminated with a joint drug task force raiding Kinzey’s home Friday, recovering a pound of methamphetamine as well as a number of rifles, handguns and biker paraphernalia, he said.

Damn. A pound of meth?

Edited to add: More detailed LAT article here. In response to Borepatch’s comment, neither of the articles say anything about the tenure status of the professors involved. But the accused pimp has apparently been working for his university since 1969, and the biker/drug dealer has been teaching at his university for ten years, so I’d be a little surprised if both of them weren’t tenured.

A while back, I read Ian Flemming’s book Thrilling Cities. It occurs to me that someone could write a book called Crooked Cities, possibly without ever leaving California.

First up: the state Senate has rejected a bill that would have disincorporated the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon. This isn’t the end of the line: the city has agreed to some reforms, and is currently under investigation by the IRS. But it is a major setback for those of us who were hoping for a good disincorporation.

Meanwhile, back in Bell, former fiefdom of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, it seems that the city issued $50 million in bonds a few years back. (I can’t tell if it was 2003 or 2004 from the LAT article.) The bonds were intended to pay for

a state-of-the-art complex for baseball and soccer and a new practice space for the Bell Sapphires, its award-winning cheerleading team. The city also planned to improve the civic center and parks, and to build a new library and other facilities.

Anyone want to take a guess on what’s happened?

The city spent millions of dollars on design, site preparation and fencing. But the land remains vacant, with no plans to build anything there. Some improvements were made at other city parks, but the promised facilities weren’t built.

Here’s the punchline: even though nothing was built, the money’s gone, and the city’s broke, the new city government still has to go through with the tax increases that were put into place to pay off the bonds.

For a home valued at $400,000, the annual property tax levy would increase by $116 beginning around October, according to city officials. Bell’s current tax rate would rise from 1.54% to 1.57%. That means the owner of a $400,000 home in Bell would pay about $2,000 more in property taxes than a similar homeowner in Pasadena or Beverly Hills.

Of course, the tax increase money is going to the bond holders, not into the general city government fund. And the city residents are upset that their taxes are being increased. But what’s the alternative, guys? Defaulting on the bonds, even if they were issued by a bunch of crooks, is just going to hurt you in the long run. Bell’s best bet at this point seems to be to return the unspent funds (about $20 million, per the LAT), and try to squeeze whatever they can out of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and his cronies.