Unbelievable!
Every member of the administration and city council of the Los Angeles, Calif., suburb of Bell should be removed from office for utter incompetence and extreme greed ... all at the taxpayers' expense.
City council has fired its city manager, assistant city manager and police chief after it became known the city manager's annual salary was $787,637, the assistant city manager's was $376,288 and the police chief made $457,000, which is $150,000 a year more than the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
All the over-paid positions came to light from an investigative series by the Los Angeles Times., which termed the three posts the highest paid in the United States. Without the newspaper's delving into the payroll cvia public record law, the little 2-square-mile suburb undoubtedly still would be paying the outrageous salaries.
Maybe the most interesting part of the idiocy is the mayor and three of the four city council members make about $100,000 a year, but they didn't opt to reduce their pay as they were firing the city administrators. The fourth member of council makes $8,000 a year, and is the only member of council not being targeted for a recall vote.
There is no doubt, if the city of Parkersburg paid salaries as high as those previously paid in Bell, there would be a firestorm of protest and irate citizens storming a city council meeting, which certainly would be justified.
For the record, the Parkersburg mayor is paid $60,000 a year and each of the council members is paid $6,000 a year. The police chief's salary is $50,000, all of which seems far more reasonable than what was being paid in Bell..
