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BELL

Leo Briones, was
campaign manager for
Cristina Garcia during
her 2009 failed city
council campaign in Bell
Gardens; was Pedro
Carrillo's campaign
manager during the
2001 State Assembly
race. Carrillo lost.
Briones is good friends
with George Cole,
former city of Bell mayor
and author of Bell's
Charter City
proposition, and led
efforts to increase
salaries to city council
and top administrators.

Why BASTA is not calling for
Carrillos' resignation &
State Controller John Chiang's
Conflict of Interest in Bell
Part I: Rizzo & George
Cole Donated to Pedro
Carrillo's 2001
Assembly Campaign
The Editor, WatchOurCity.com,
Thursday August 12, 2010, 10:30 a.m.
Bell, CA - Nestor Valencia and
Bell residents have been
complaining that they have
no trust in Bell's Interim City
Manager Pedro Carrillo
(see full report).

Pedro Carrillo, Bell's Interim City
Manager, connected directly to Rizzo
and George Cole

BASTA's Owner revealed: "BASTA will make me lots of money"; in
conflict with Bell Residents

Part II: BASTA issues Press release criticising
Whitman's politicizing Bell; Gov. Candidate Whitman
responds stating BASTA is largely funded by Bell
Police Union
Friday, August 13, 2010
The Editor, WatchOurCity.com

Bell, CA - Meg Whitman, California gubernatorial candidate, was told by BASTA, Bell's
self-proclaimed advocate for angry Bell residents, to "cease and desist" politicizing
Bell's problems. In response, Whitman's campaign shot back with a powerful salvo.

Cristina Garcia, BASTA's leader, stated to the Times,"We don't want to be used as a
political ploy." According to the Times, "The Whitman campaign dismissed those
claims, noting that the group is largely funded by the city's police union."

Meg Whitman's campaign mailer hit residents in the southeast cities on Thursday
August 12, 2010 slamming Attorney General Jerry Brown for the municipal scandals in
Bell, which all happened under his watch.

And yet, Cristina is using Bell residents as a political ploy, as WatchOurCity.com
exposed in yesterday's report (see Part I).

So who owns BASTA?

City of Bell's Interim City Manger Pedro Carrillo was appointed by the very city council
members who approved criminal level salaries for Rizzo, Spaccia and PD Chief Adams.
Carrillo was hired by Rizzo on George Cole's recommendation to lead special projects
for Bell. One of his duties was to defend and justify Bell's salaries stating that Rizzo
deserved such salary due his action in saving the city from bankruptcy. Such is the
character of Carrillo that he goes before news cameras broadcasting live to
announce with jaw-dropping incredulity that Rizzo, Spaccia and Police Chief Adams
deserved their salaries, indeed, earned them.

Now, Carrillo seems shocked that the very people he was defending have nearly
doubled their already egregiously heinous salaries with perks, with Spaccia receiving
$130,000 personal loan from public funds on top of her now nearly $800,000 salary,
not including Pedro Carrillo's $10,000 per month he threw at her to run municipal
affairs for the city of Maywood. Carrillo is a direct product of the very heart of the
problem in Bell, a protege of Rizzo and George Cole. In essence, Carrillo has zero
credibility. It's curious he continues in his position as Bell's Interim City Manager,
knowing that his political pedigree and lineage is a direct fist generation descendant
of Rizzo, Mayor Hernandez and George Cole, the Don of Bell and southeast cities.

Originally, Carrillo came under George Cole's tutelage when Cole hired Carrillo at
$10,000 per month to lead Cole's Southeast Cities Schools Coalition to break away
from LAUSD. There was no office, no staff, no work, but he worked for George Cole.
Earlier, Cole and Rizzo made campaign donations to Carrillo back in 2001.

Now it turns out that Carrillo is negotiating exclusively with BASTA, the grassroots
Bell community group which, for now, is in coalition with Nestor Valencia's Justice For
Bell, or better known as the Bell Residents Club. We'll come back to Nestor and his
relationship to BASTA a bit later.

At this point in the Bell saga of nauseating corruption, nothing would seem to shock,
and yet, more information keeps coming from Bell, which in fact, continues to shock.
Bell council member Velez stated to the Times, new revelations makes Velez feel sick
to his stomach, and feeling like he was "raped" on news that Rizzo, Spaccia and
Chief Adams actually were making double the already sickening salaries earlier
announced. Shoes are dropping left and right.

Well now comes a new shoe dropping. Again, what could be more shocking than
doubling of salaries? Leo Briones was Carrillo's campaign manager in 2002 when
Carrillo ran and lost against Fabian Nunez for the 49th Assembly seat, representing
southeast cities, including Bell, Huntington Park and Maywood. Briones was also
Cristina Garcia's campaign manager when she ran for a council seat in Bell Gardens.
Both Carrillo and Garcia lost their campaign races.

Cristina Garcia, is BASTA's smug spokeswoman, who conveniently neglected to
disclose to the media that she is connected to Carrillo through BASTA's campaign
manager, Briones. Carrillo's relationship to BASTA, the grassroots group working in
coalition with Nestor Valencia's Bell Residents Club, is beginning to raise concerns
with murmurs among residents that inside deals are being cut between Carrillo and
Leo Briones, the force behind BASTA. Leo Briones is best friends with George Cole
(Bell's long-time mayor who signed off on Rizzo's $800 K salary), has worked with
Francisco Leal, Huntington Park's city attorney who is also George Cole's best friend.

La Opinion newspaper published a report yesterday noting that Huntington Park's
city attorney is making nearly half a million dollars in one year. Briones was until
about two years ago, State Senator Martha Escutia's husband. It was State Senator
Escutia who, at George Cole's insistence, guidance and cajoling, authored SB 1380 in
2002 giving Joint Powers authority to southeast cities, specifically to George Cole,
laying the groundwork to break away from LAUSD. Cole is now the Director of the
School Coalitions' Foundation. Board members of the Coalition include city council
members from Bell such as Teresa Jacobo, from Maywood, Huntington Park and South
Gate. George Cole and Leo Briones became good friends and joined forces as political
operatives in Bell and southeast cities political campaigns.

Briones runs a consulting company called Centaur North, listing many clients,
including state-wide and local ballot propositions. Some of those clients, as listed on
Centaur North's website include the California Latino Caucus, LAUSD, Lynwood
Citizens for Good Government (rather familiar to BASTA's' mission in Bell).

When still married to then State Senator Escutia, the L.A. Times profiled Briones in a
not so bright light, highlighting questionable business practices tied to his wife's
official duties, with the Times suggesting he crossed ethical lines. In Bell, Briones has
a client who is paying him handsomely. BASTA's relationship to Briones and Carrillo
has not been disclosed to the media nor to Bell residents, who would perhaps think
twice about BASTA's backers and handlers who are intimate city hall insiders. Briones
hired Enrique Aranda from George Cole's Oldtimers Foundation. Enrique was Cole's
VP at the Oldtimers and was a Cole political operative in political campaigns.

Cristina is BASTA's media's darling and is the talking head for all things
anti-corruption in Bell. Turns out, BASTA is a slick front designed to look like a
grassroots civic group, just like George Cole's Southeast Cities Schools Coalition.
Make no mistake, BASTA is a political fabrication; it is a fake front group run by one of
Sacramento's slickest of dudes who doesn't work for free. Briones was Cristina
Garcia's campaign manager when she ran and lost for Bell Gardens city council for the
November 2009 race. Garcia, the USC professor turned Bell community activist, never
disclosed to the media, to her young and enthusiastic supporters in Bell, nor to the
Bell residents that she was in on a deal to deceive residents.

BASTA's website asks for donations. Not disclosed is that most of the proceeds are
going directly into the pockets of Leo Briones, the group's highly paid consultant, the
ultimate city hall insider. On BASTA's donation page, the group explains that "BASTA
is committed to transparency".

A press release by BASTA from a week ago referred all contact info to Leo Briones.
That's when certain Bell residents began to question this new player in Bell's epic
failure. Even certain print and broadcast media began to wonder what Leo Briones
was doing in the shadows of BASTA.

Turns out, Leo created BASTA, as he himself admitted, with Cristina Garcia, the USC
adjunct professor as his comrade. Both evidently have deceived Bell residents about
their true intentions. Both were "in" on the deal when city council appointed Carrillo
as Interim City Manager on the heels of Rizzo's resignation. Neither Briones nor
Cristina are from Bell, Pedro Carrillo's family resides in Sacramento. But the plot
thickens. Nestor Valencia created the Bell Residents Club years ago, born out of
frustration with Rizzo's and George Cole's outright corruption and absentee ballot
voter fraud, massive tax indebtedness, and has been at the forefront of exposing
corruption in Bell. Nestor is who invited Cristina Garcia to help him organize in Bell.
Little did Nestor realize he was being infiltrated by city hall insiders, with direct 1st
degree connections going directly back to George Cole and Rizzo, through Carrillo
and Briones.

Nestor called a meeting with Briones on August 2 to confront Briones about his
agenda. That's when Briones laid it on Nestor, to paraphrase, Briones told Nestor to
either join him, or get out of the way; control of Bell is in Briones' hands, Cristina's
and Pedro Carrillo's, none of whom are from Bell, none of whom have paid the price
of going against a powerful political machinery, but all of whom will profit from Bell's
tragedy.

Briones warned Nestor that his Bell Residents club is "nothing". In fact, Briones
threatened Nestor Valencia to get out of the way of BASTA, and even offered a job to
Valencia as consolation. When, after a few days Nestor had not returned his calls,
Briones became threatening. In text messages reviewed by WatchOurCity.com, Leo
Briones sends the following veiled message to Nestor, "I'm disappointed in you". In
another text message, Briones continued to harass Nestor, "I haven't heard from
you", in reference to the job offer, and the larger offer for Nestor to co-opt his group
of dedicated Bell Residents.

Briones finished Nestor's meeting by saying that BASTA will make Briones "lots of
money" and that the Bell's Police Officers Association is his "only client", not the Bell
residents. Briones also admitted that he "owns BASTA", and coined the acronym
himself.

Basta issued a press release on Sunday August 8, at 8:51 p.m. asking for the
resignations of several other city employees making out sized salaries. Curiously,
BASTA did not ask for the resignation of Pedro Carrillo. Bell residents have been sold
out, co-opted by Cristina, Briones, Carrillo, with the latter two being direct
descendants of Rizzo and George Cole, linking back to Cristina through Briones, her
campaign manager.

Times staff writer Sam Quinones wrote in a published book "True Tales From Another
Mexico" that "...corruption became not some unfortunate human failing but the
machine's lifeblood, necessary for its survival and part of the political culture". He was
writing about Mexico in 1990's, but, it well applies to Bell and southeast L.A. counties.

At this point, the city of Bell should simply go into State receivership.

For Immediate Release Contact:
Cristina Garcia (213) 215-2621

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

BASTA denounces Meg
Whitman’s Cynical Attempt to
Use Bell Corruption Scandal to
Bolster Her Gubernatorial
Campaign
Today, a “hit piece” by
Gubernatorial candidate Meg
Whitman landed in the mailboxes
of voters in Bell and other areas
across Los Angeles County. The
brochure was an attempt to link
Attorney General and
Gubernatorial candidate Jerry
Brown to “Bell-like” issues
when he was Mayor of Oakland.
On the facts, the brochure
stretches credulity by comparing
salaries of administrators in
Oakland, (pop. 800,000) making
less than $200,000 to the
excesses of Bob Rizzo and
company whose salaries all
exceeded $400,000 and were as
much as $1.5 million in a city of
40,000 residents, is ridiculous.
“We have a simple message for
Meg Whitman. Don’t take the
suffering of Bell residents and
use it for political purposes.
Cease and desist!,” said BASTA
representative Denise Rodarte.
BASTA leaders approached the
Office of Attorney General
Brown within days that
revelations of the salary
excessive broke in the Los
Angeles Times. The Attorney
General’s Office agreed with
BASTA leadership that a
criminal investigation was
necessary and they have moved
swiftly. Last week, Attorney
General Brown announced that
his office has subpoened
extensive financial records and
nine Bell city officials. Rodarte
explained, “We were very clear
with the Attorney General’s
Office that we wanted this
investigation to remain above
politics. His office was gracious
and agreed that complete
objectivity was necessary to
conduct a thorough and fair
investigation. In the eyes of
BASTA Jerry Brown has lived
up to his words,” Rodarte
concluded, “Meg Whitman, on
the other hand, is acting like a
cynical, self-serving individual.
Again, we ask her to stop using
Bell as a campaign issue. YA
BASTA!” ###