Readers may recall the story of excessive municipal compensation of officials in Bell, California, an impoverished town where officials helped themselves to huge salaries. See, Excessive Public Compensation in Bell, California (Lessons for the Rest of America) and Update: Excessive Public Compensation in Bell, California (Lessons for the Rest of America)
It’s even worse than first reported:
…two top officials in the scandal-ridden California city of Bell illegally paid themselves hugely inflated salaries and created a paper trail to hide their actions while joking that they were acting like pigs, according to a document filed in court Monday by the district attorney’s office….
The two [officials] also joke by e-mail of enriching themselves at the expense of Bell, a modest, working-class suburb of Los Angeles where one in six people live in poverty.
“I am looking forward to seeing you and taking all of Bell’s money,” [former Police Chief Randy] Adams writes at one point, according to the memo.
“LOL . well you can take your share of the pie . just like us,” Spaccia allegedly replies. She goes on to say that one of Rizzo’s favorite sayings is that pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered.
“So as long as we’re not hogs . all is well,” she is quoted in the document.
And yet – and yet – to the community they called themselves public servants.