Getting their Bell rung...

Bell, California is a town of nearly 37,000 good souls located in Los Angeles County. The town is very small--2 1/2 square miles which qualifies it as one of the ten smallest cities in the United States. According to what I have read, its a pretty hard scrabble place--the town is so poor it runs its own food pantry and a quarter of its citizens are below the official poverty level. But the improvished circumstances of the town and its residents haven't stopped its top elected officials from gorging at the public trough.

According to the July 20, 2010 Los Angeles Times and other publications, City Manager Robert Rizzo is being paid $787,637 a year. Not to be out done, Police Chief Randy Adams rakes in $457,000 annually while Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia gets by on a paltry $376,288 every year. And, as I am sure you are aware, these bloated salaries are the basis on which even more bloated retirement benefits are calculated so the good citizens of Bell don't get rid of the financial burden traceable to these three pigs even if the city council somehow musters the will and the legal basis to fire them. To put this in perspective, Obama gets a measily $400,000 a year while Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is practically poverty stricken at only $250,000 annually.

These "public pigs" from Bell certainly qualify as the collective poster children for what is going on to a lesser degree in lots of other government agencies and public agencies. Huge salaries and even bigger pensions and medical insurance for life. I would guess the citizens of Bell are mad as hell and trying to figure out a way not to take it anymore. Their justifiable anger only mirrors the nationwide discontent with the out-of-control spending, wages and benefits that have been propagated by the current crop of incumbent politicians. No matter whether he/she be a Republican or a Democrat, any politician who has participated in the approval of all of this on-going runaway spending should be shaking in their boots. The voters have every right to be mad as hell and they certainly should not take it anymore. Hopefully, as the opportunities arise through normal election cycles, the fiscally prolific will be thrown out on their ears or another part of their anatomies.

Sam Simmerman LaSalle St Securities, LLC sthree@lasallest.com