Record-setting Corruption

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for uncovering corruption that makes Cuyahoga County look like a rookie league. Maybe you saw the story today.

In the town of Bell, California, a blue collar community south of Los Angeles, the city manager makes $787,637, the assistant city manager makes $376,288 and the police chief makes $457,000.

Well, what the hell. The town of Bell can afford it. The population is 40,000 and the poverty rate is only 17 percent.

When the Times came out with its story last week, the shameful city manager, assistant manager and police chief resigned.

There are five part-time city councilmen. Four of them make in the vicinity of $100,000. The other councilman, Lorenzo Velez, makes only $8,000, more in line with what councilmen usually make for attending one meeting a week. I’d like to give him a pat on the back for honesty, but he must be incredibly stupid to be the only one who didn’t know how the game works in Bell. He should be run out of office for incompetence.

I haven’t mentioned the mayor yet. His name is Oscar Hernandez and the Times story did not list his salary. The mayor is a part-time position, mainly ceremonial, in a city manager type of government. But Oscar is responsible for signing off on those salaries. Last week he defended the salaries, but this week he says that he will step down when his term expires in March. In the meantime, he says, he will finish his term without pay. He probably has enough stashed away.

In this kind of company, our former sheriff Gerald McFaul couldn’t get a job as a garbage collector.

Greed is usually a moral issue, but this is so egregious, surely it must be a legal matter. I have an idea. Those crooks should be put back on the city payroll as garbage collectors at a dollar a year until they have worked off every last dollar they extorted. I know one thing. They’ll never be in that 17 percent. What a shame.

This article reprinted from CoughlinUnplugged.com, through a partnership between Dan Coughlin and The Cleveland Leader. To read more of his writing, visit his website.