Bell: The Scandal’s Beginnings

Bell isn’t a big town, or a wealthy one. But some of its top officials are paid double or triple the salaries of their counterparts elsewhere.

Robert Rizzo seemed right for the town -- until he became an ‘unaccountable czar.’

The city asked voters to back conversion to charter status in 2005, the year the California Legislature limited the pay of council members statewide. Only 400 people in a city of 40,000 voted on the measure.

Eight are held in scandal the D.A. calls ‘corruption on steroids’