From Kleptocracy to Democracy

From Kleptocracy to Democracy Bassim Hamadeh, CEO and Publisher Mieka Portier, Acquisitions Editor Tony Paese, Project Editor Berenice Quirino, Associate Production Editor Jess Estrella, Senior Graphic Designer Danielle Gradisher, Licensing Associate Natalie Piccotti, Director Marketing Kassie Graves, Vice President of Editorial Jamie Giganti, Director of Academic Publishing Copyright © 2019 by Cognella, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of Cognella, Inc. For inquiries regard-ing permissions, translations, foreign rights, audio rights, and any other forms of reproduction, please contact the Cognella Licensing Department at [email protected]. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Cover image copyright© 2015 iStockphoto LP/RussellCreative. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN: 978-1-5165-3954-3 (pbk) / 978-1-5165-3955-0 (br) From Kleptocracy to Democracy HOW CITIZENS CAN TAKE BACK LOCAL GOVERNMENT First Edition Fred Smoller For Rod, the best teacher and friend a guy could have. Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1 The Rise and Fall of Bell 7 Chapter 2 Training: How Rizzo Perfected the Art of Graft 27 Chapter 3 The Fox Moves Into the Hen House: Rizzo in Bell 39 Chapter 4 The Election that Changes Everything 55 Chapter 5 We’re Being Robbed: The Press Takes Notice 73 Chapter 6 A Community Rediscovers its Power: BASTA (Enough!) 93 Chapter 7 Complicit Dupes: The City Council Trial 115 Chapter 8 The Mechanics of Graft: The Spaccia Trial 153 Chapter 9 Taking on Rizzo 175 Chapter 10 Rebuilding Bell 189 Chapter 11 Making Local Government Harder to Plunder 213 Appendix 1: List of Names 255 Index 261 Preface “A public servant is privileged to serve and public service is its own reward.” —Plaque in Bell’s City Hall At the stArt of each semester, I hold out a $10 bill and ask my students to name our mayor and council members.1 After more than 35 years of college teaching, I haven’t lost the sawbuck yet. Someday, one of my students will return the favor and ask me to name the county assessor or auditor or clerk or director of the municipal water district. I’d flunkthat test. The fact is, few people pay much attention to local government. In general, there’s much less partisan rancor in local government than there is in Washington; as the saying goes, there is no Republican or Democratic way to pave a street. News stories about one of the 60,000 local governments rarely show up on the evening news programs: Marquee politicians, national politics, and the spectacle of war is their métier, not city hall. Instead, most locally elected officials and staff labor in ano- nymity. They’re seen as trustworthy and competent and are mostly ignored by the press, opinion leaders, and academics. So, it is not at all surprising that Gallup continually finds that the American people trust local government more than the federal government or the 50 state governments.2 That all changed—for a time, at least—on July 15, 2010, when the Los Angeles Times began running a series of stories that detailed eye-popping corruption in the City of Bell, CA, a small, poor, and working-class city in Los Angeles County, 1 2 | From Kleptocracy to Democracy composed mainly of Latinos and immigrants. Over the next two years, the L.A. Times uncovered one of the worst municipal corruption scandals in U.S. history. Bell was investigated by the Department of Justice, the FBI, IRS, SEC, the California Attorney General, the State Controller’s Office, CalPERS (the state retirement fund), the State Department of Corporations, the Los Angeles District Attorney, and agencies that assign city credit ratings. The Bell scandal—like scandals in municipalities such as Flint, Michigan, where local officials pumped contami- nated water into residents’ homes and then lied about it, and Ferguson, Missouri, where a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager resulting in two weeks of rioting— underlines how much local government matters, how much local officials need to be watched, and how much local government relies on our participation to keep it honest.3 In addition to keeping our streets safe and our water fit to drink, local government determines “where we can live, how we can dress, what we can eat, and how we can act in both public and private spaces.”4 Local government is the only form of government that people can create. It is also the fastest growing level of government. It collects more revenue than the federal government does in taxes and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employs nearly seven times more people than the federal government and three and a half times more people than all 50 state governments combined.5 Also, it is in local government that citizens and elected officials—many of whom will go on to higher office—first learnabout democracy. It’s a cruel and extremely costly paradox that this level of government, the arena closest to home, with such powerful and immediate impact on our lives, finances, and the quickening of democracy, is the one that most citizens ignore. The Bell story has an engrossing plot, compelling characters, and important lessons about democracy: A watchdog press alerts the public about corruption in city hall; government agencies investigate; angry residents, led by an unusual coalition of first generation Latinos and Muslims, rally the community to win Preface | 3 back democracy6 by mounting a successful recall campaign; the old guard is kicked out of office, replaced by a slate of reformers. The legal system tries and punishes the Bell defendants; expe- rienced city managers and other professionals work tirelessly to put Bell on the path to recovery; Sacramento enacts reforms; the city becomes a model of good governance. The Bell story touched a nerve. It was covered in the nation’s newspapers and on the evening news programs but also in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa. People were captivated by the astonishing level of greed—the city manager was making $1.5 million in total compensation in one of L.A.’s poorest cities—and by the citizen revolt that toppled him and the city council that were in on the scam. Trials and hefty prison sentences for the ringleaders followed, and a group of dedicated public servants set about rebuilding city hall. This book closely examines the Bell scandal. It retells the story with an eye on the many obvious and subtle factors that let democracy wither and corruption take hold. The goal here is to help prevent future “Bells” by offering concrete suggestions about how to keep local democracy alive and corruption at bay. My research includes interviews with more than 50 people connected with the Bell scandal, including current and former council members, activists, attorneys, journalists, current and former staff and Bell citizens. I also read press accounts and trial transcripts and attended the trials. Rizzo and Angela Spaccia, the former assistant city manager, Bell’s second-in-command, and Rizzo’s partner in crime, declined to speak to me. However, I spoke with their attorneys, with Rizzo’s stepbrother, and with people who had worked with Rizzo in Bell and at the previous cities where he had worked and who knew him well. My research benefited from white papers that were written for a conference about the scandal I put on at Chapman Uni- versity in February of 2015. The conference speakers included attorneys, academics, state officials, current and former city council members, Bell staff, the leaders of BASTA, the group that overthrew Bell’s corrupt administration, and everyday citizens. These papers are referred to throughout the book.7 4 | From Kleptocracy to Democracy This conference and additional Bell research was sponsored with a generous grant from Fieldstead and Company. I am grateful to my wife, Lidija, for her passionate support, for her many hours spent on the project, and for her thoughtful criticism and suggestions. I am also thankful to Donna Frazier Glynn, Min Suk Gim, and Madasen McGrath, Julian Smoller and Stephanie Friedenrich for their assistance. I owe a special debt to Los Angeles Times reporters Jeff Got- tlieb and Ruben Vives for their Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage, and the other reporters who wrote about the scandal. Much of the narrative is based on their reporting. I am also grateful to the city managers who followed Robert Rizzo—Pedro Carillo, Ken Hampian, Arne Croce—and espe- cially Doug Willmore, who, along with attorneys David Aleshire and Anthony Taylor, rebuilt the city—outstanding public servants, all. Also helpful were ICMA West Coast Regional Director, Kevin Duggan, and Bell’s current (2018) city manager, Howard Brown. This book was also enriched by the insights provided by Bell employees Allan Perdomo, James Corcoran, Mike Trevis, and Angela Bustamante, and Bell residents Roger Ramirez, Alfred Aryan, and Trina and Bob Mackin, and local business owners Eldon Neesan, Willie Salazar, and Gerardo Quiroz. I also benefitted from the support and encouragement of my colleagues at Chapman University—Arthur Blaser, Mike Moodian, and Robert Slayton. A one-semester sabbatical from Chapman University allowed me to complete the manuscript. The Bell story reaffirms the American dream. This dream stresses hard work, determination, education and upward mobility. Poor, non-English-speaking immigrants came to Bell seeking a better life, from south of the border and as far away as southern Lebanon.

Load more