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WatchOurCity.com
In The Public Interest .com
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WatchOurCity
Friday, July 23, 2010
| Bell, CA - City Council members came out of Closed Session just past midnight to announce at 12:20 that City Manager Robert Rizzo, Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and Police Chief Randy Adams have resigned effective immediately. No word yet on who the interim Chief of Police would be. Also, Angela Spaccia was the city administrator in charge of running neighboring city of Maywood's financial affairs when that city made international news two weeks ago by laying off its entire civil service work force and dismantling its police department. Spaccia and Rizzo were managing the day to day municipal affairs of Maywood. No word on the impact resignations will have on Maywood's operations. Pedro Carrillo, who is the city's spokesperson, was appointed as the Bell's Interim City Manager. Pedro actively defended, supported and justified the criminal salaries given to top city administrators and to council members as early as yesterday in a televised news broadcast by KTLA Channel 5 news, all in the face of unbelievable disgust, even in the reporters face. No word yet on status on the pending multi-million dollar retirement packages due all three administrators. For Rizzo, it is estimated that his yearly retirement will be approximately $600,000 per year, for the next 30 years. A spokesperson from the Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, stated that budgeting for Rizzo's retirement payout alone would bankrupt the PERS treasury, and would severely impact its ability to maintain payments for rank and file retirees such as teachers, firemen and librarians. Unless State Attorney General Jerry Brown can find criminal wrongdoing, Rizzo will make history a second time as California's -and quite possibly the country's - highest paid retired public employee, just ahead of neighboring city of Vernon's former city manager Bruce Malkenhorst Jr., who receives around $500,000 in PERS payouts per year, even after being indicted in Vernon's corruption probe from 3 years back. According to several media reports, including the Times, California's Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a sweeping investigation into the city of Bell's criminal-level salaries, accusing the elected city council members and top administrators as having failed their "fiduciary duty" (see WatchOurCity.com's report posted on July 13, 2010, " Depriving the Public of Honest Services"). One wonders how much is politics since Whitman, his opponent for the gubernatorial face-off this November, is already accusing Brown of being asleep at the wheel while unprecedented looting of Bell's municipal treasure is underway. The Associated Press reports that "California Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office has launched an investigation in conjunction with the state's public employee retirement agency into pension and related benefits for Bell's civic leaders". Bell's astronomical salaries were loopholed around a 2005 state law, AB 11 authored by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre of South Gate, which intended to curb such abuse of public funds as in Bell. Back then the poster child for salary abuse was Huntington Park city officials (see WatchOurCity.com's report on AB 11 from report posted on September 8, 2005). WatchOurCity.com has been reporting on Bell's corruption and connections to surrounding cities, about illicit use of absentee ballots to win elections and, in Bell's case to win passage of a law which converted the city from a General law to Charter Law status, giving city officials legal cover for actual criminal intent with salaries and public contracting practices (see WatchOurCity.com report from July 19, 2010, "George Cole - The brains behind Rizzo's $800,000 salary and $100,000 salary for city council"). The intellectual author of Bell's criminal enterprise is former long-time Bell mayor George Cole, who was first elected to Bell's city council in 1993, same year as Rizzo was hired by the city. George Cole was the mastermind behind not only the salary spikes which increased eleven-fold for Rizzo from $93,000 in 1993 to almost $800,000 in 2010, but was also the driver behind the city's Charter City initiative. Bell's Charter City status allowed Bell officials a crafty circumvention of the spirit and intent of Assemblyman De La Torre's AB 11. Public records obtained by the Times revealed that the Charter City proposition was put before the voters with little explanation as to its true intent, cost consequences or impact to public funds. The public record also revealed that only 356 votes in the entire city of 36,000 residents were cast to pass the Charter initiative, which was enthusiastically supported by all council members then. The Times discovered an additional surprise about the 356 votes, 290 were absentee ballots. George Cole is Director of the Oldtimers Foundation located right next door to Bell, on Gage Avenue in Huntington Park. John Noguez, Huntington Park's mayor, has given George Cole's Oldtimers Foundation millions of dollars in municipal contracts, all in rigged bidding conditions, as reported here since 2004. Cole's Oldtimers Foundation also is recipient of Bell's and Huntington Park's Senior Citizen housing management contracts. Cole has direct access to senior citizens through his management contracts and uses that direct access for political advantage. Case in point, Bell's passage of its Charter city initiative was achieved with 82% absentee ballots. In Bell, city employees were deployed to deliver absentee ballots to registered senior citizen housing projects under contract with Cole's Oldtimers Foundation; Bell employees in officers uniforms were deployed to personally carry absentee ballots to each senior citizen, and carry the completed ballots back to city hall. How could George Cole loose? Pedro Carrillo used his connections to former councilman George Cole to land a gig with the City of Bell, and now is appointed Interim City Manager. So just who is Carrillo? Most recently, Bell's new Interim City Manager lists a private interest as Principal of Urban Associates, Inc. Carrillo was an unsuccessful candidate for the 46th Assembly seat for the April 2001 election; his campaign manager and fundraiser was Conrado Terrazas. Terrazas was also employed by George Cole's Oldtimers Foundation for political campaign work and is listed in Cole's campaign contribution statements as his campaign fundraiser. Terrazas was Huntington Park John Noguez's campaign Manager (see report by WatchOurCity.com "Honor Among Thieves", December 5, 2005). Both Conrado and Noguez are gay. Terrazas wrote a glowing coming-out report about John Noguez in Adelante Magazine, a notable Latino Gay men's magazine. Carrillo attended California State University at Los Angeles from 1988 to 2003. Carrillo's' Linked-in page states that for the past seven years, since 2003, he has been principal of Urban Associates, Inc. as a management consultant. There is no mention of working for the City of Bell or any other private or public entity in those seven years, unless they were part-time consulting gigs. Urban Associates is located in Downtown L.A. at 550 S. Hope Street, Suite #1765, with a telephone number 213 327-0858. The appointment of Pedro Carrillo as Bell's Interim City Manager is a slap in the face to the residents of Bell, especially after his on-air defense of the million dollar salaries. Carrillo's' appointment also demonstrates that George Cole is still calling the shots in the background to council members. The most critical link between Carrillo and George Cole's political machinery: Carrillo was appointed by the Southeast Cities Schools Coalition as it's Executive Director (see meeting minutes dated August 13, 2009) with Cole appointed himself the Southeast Cities Schools Foundation's Director.WatchOurCity.com posted an investigative report on the Southeast Schools Coalition sham operations and illegal antics to try to grab $250,000 of local Tax Increment money's earmarked for LAUSD (see reports here and here). Expect more of the same in Bell, protection of the entrenched and vested interests worth millions of dollars in public funds, criminal in the eyes of irate community members. Below is a snapshot of Carrillo's' Urban Associates, Inc's website taken on Friday morning (www.urbanassoc.com). ______________________________________________________________ __________ |
| The Editor, WatchOurCity.com Resigned: Bell's Rizzo, Spaccia and Police Chief Adams Gone City Council appointed Pedro Carrillo as Interim City Manager; Carrillo supported and defended the criminal-level salaries. |
BELL
| ________________ Special Encore Presentation (Editor's note: Encore posting of this December 2005 report sets historical context to today's report) Honor Among Thieves Depriving The Public of Honest Services. George Cole's fingers in Huntington Park cookie jar of politics, city contracts, and LAUSD ________________ |
George Cole,
Former Bell
Councilman;
The brains
behind Rizzo's
million dollar
salary and
auther of
Bell's push for
the Charter
City initiative
in 2003.
Former Bell
Councilman;
The brains
behind Rizzo's
million dollar
salary and
auther of
Bell's push for
the Charter
City initiative
in 2003.
Pedro Carrillo, Bell's Interim City Manager,
appointed in Closed Door Session, has political and
financial connections to George Cole, Bell's former
mayor, author of Rizzo's $800,000 salary.
appointed in Closed Door Session, has political and
financial connections to George Cole, Bell's former
mayor, author of Rizzo's $800,000 salary.
| Monday, July 26, 2010 The Editor, WatchOurCity.com $10,000 a month to Pedro Carrillo by a sham Organization with no staff, no office, no work Bell, CA - At last Thursday's Bell city council meeting, mayor Oscar Hernandez announced the resignation of the top three city administrators. That was applauded. Mayor Oscar Hernandez also named Pedro Carrillo as the interim city manager. WatchOurCity.com's report posted on Friday morning profiled Pedro Carrillo as having a curious past as well as having direct connections to George Cole, Bell's former long-time mayor and Don of the southeast cities political machinery. New items came to light regarding Carrillo's past which only reinforces Friday's observation that Carrillo is part of the same team that defrauded not only the residents of Bell, but now with pending pension obligations, the several municipalities which have pooled their pension funds together with the city of Bell. Pedro Carrillo vehemently defended Rizzo's salary, following the same talking points which mayor Oscar Hernandez voiced, that such salaries are justified by the good job Rizzo et al were doing. Pedro Carillo;s political pedigree is tied at the hip with Mayor Oscar Hernandez's and George Cole's. Carrillo served as Executive Director of the Southeast Cities Schools Coalition, a sham organization created by George Cole to attempt to break away from LAUSD. WatchOurCity.com's report on March 8, 2010 exposed the shady and questionable antics of this group. The group has no official office, using a surplus desk in Vernon's city hall. Carrillo was paid $10,000 per month, equivalent to $120,000 per year for a job that had no duties, no schedule, no staff, other than to meet with board members for one to two hours per month. This is the same thing financial fraud Bell council members were doing to increase their take home pay, sitting on boards that meet for sometimes as short as one minute. The Southeast Cities Schools Coalition has many sugar daddies paying with public funds to sustain it. Member cities are Bell, Cudahy (which as of late, has pulled it's membership from the Coalition), Huntington Park, Maywood and South Gate. Carmen Avalos from South Gate is the Coalition's board secretary, and Ana Rizo, Maywood's mayor, is also a member. Other board members include Teresa Jacobo, yeah, that Teresa, the one from Bell pilfering residents for $100,000 per year, the same one that said its OK to pay Rizzo, Spaccia and PD chief Adams criminal-level salaries. The Coalition's only agenda is to break away from LAUSD to create its own school district composed of about 60 schools and 60,000 students. A school district of these proportions would operate with a budget of roughly half a billion dollars, an amount which is 5 times the operating budgets of the southeast cities combined. More critically, the Coalition recently created a holding-type entity called the Southeast Cities Schools Foundation. George Cole is the Director. Cole is the former Bell Council member who came into office in 1993, same year Rizzo was hired by Bell. It was George who was the brains behind the salary spikes, the Charter Law initiative and its deceptions. It was George who kept elections to himself in Bell by threatening challengers with their jobs; it was Cole who received million dollar contracts in rigged bidding conditions from West Basin Water Board and millions of dollars from Huntington Park's Mayor John Noguez in transportation and senior citizen housing management contracts. It is George Cole who is still very much in charge of Bell's municipal affairs, still calling the shots. Because it was Cole who directed that Bell hire Pedro Carrillo. Last Thursday evening when, when Rizzo resigned, mayor Oscar Hernandez followed George Cole's orders that Pedro Carrillo be installed as Interim City Manager. Pedro Carrillo, like Mayor Hernandez and police office Miranda, keep insisting that Rizzo's salaries were justified. George Cole gave them |