Bell California Overwhelmingly Voted For Recall of Corrupt Officials
Bell, CA was the poster child for all that could possibly go wrong with a municipal government. Officials treated the residents like their personal piggy bank and officials treated themselves to luxurious six figure salaries while the average salary in the city was $30,000 a year. The mayor raked in $800,000.
These officials lined their pockets by illegally imposing property taxes, and using police fines and impounded cars to further their ill-gotten gains.
Residents went to the polls yesterday and voted overwhelmingly to oust four of the accused officials, but the recall effort wasn’t without controversy. Some accused an out-of-town Tea Party advocate of throwing money around in support of her preferred candidate, and the police union may have violated the law with its own mailings. One of the candidates for replacing the corrupt politicians died days before the election (but the outcome was not affected - the deceased came in 2d behind another candidate). In the end, Bell has gotten pretty much a clean slate of municipal officials, but there’s a long way to go to cleaning up the city.