Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Something Stinky in Bell California



Over at NRO, Daniel Foster writes about the arrest of corrupt government officials in the small town of Bell California:

Bell, Calif.:population 36,664, and the poster city for fiscal dysfunction and bad government in the poster state for fiscal dysfunction and bad government.

It is a place barely two miles square — a half dozen stoplights in any direction and you’re somewhere else — a poor, predominantly Hispanic community like dozens of others in Southern California, its people eking by on a per capita income of $24,800.

So it must have come as something of a shock when, earlier this summer, Bell residents learned from a report in the LA Times that their top bureaucrat, city administrator Robert Rizzo, was earning $1.54 million annually in total compensation, while enjoying 143 (paid) sick and vacation days per year. And that Rizzo’s assistant, Angela Spaccia, was pulling down $845,960 a year. And that police chief Randy Adams, overseeing a department of 24 that had recently slashed its training budget in half, was earning $770,046.

Arrested were: a Democrat, a Democrat, a Democrat, a Democrat, a Democrat, a Democrat, a Democrat, and a Democrat. Lachlan Markay at Newsbusters noticed:
Today, eight city council members were arrested in Bell, California for what Los Angeles County District Attorney labeled "corruption on steroids." Thus far, every major news outlet that has reported on the story has omitted the fact that all eight individuals arrested are Democrats.

These glaring omissions come only weeks after NewsBusters reported that of the 351 stories on the then-brewing controversy, 350 had omitted party affiliations, and one had mentioned they were Democrats only in apologizing for not doing so sooner.

And another aspect of the case was ignored by everyone, except Are We Lumberjacks. There's a very good chance that "Rizzo", the city administrator, is actually Jiminy Glick, a Martin Short character:



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