The city of Bell’s top administrators, who have been the subject of outrage over reports of their robust salaries, agreed to resign on Thursday night.

City Manager Robert Rizzo, Police Chief Randy Adams and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia stepped down at a closed-door meeting and announced the results to a crowd at midnight. None of the three will receive severance packages.




The Los Angeles Times, which has reported the scandal throughout after breaking the news, reported that Rizzo and Adams will step down at the end of August and Spaccia will leave at the end of September.  Rizzo was paid $787,637 a year, while Adams made $457,000 and Spaccia made $376,288.

From the Times:

The crowd erupted in applause after the announcement but immediately yelled out questions about what would happen to the council members. Four of the five are paid close to $100,000 annually. When their questions were not answered, they shouted, “Recall!”

… The emergency meeting followed several days of negotiations between the officials and attorneys for the city to reach deals.The crowd began shouting when Councilman Lorenzo Velez’s request to open the meeting to the public was overruled by the city attorney, who said the city would be at legal risk if it discussed personnel matters in public.

Emotions ran so high that the council chamber was briefly cleared. Several residents taunted council members, including yelling “rude, rude” when Mayor Oscar Hernandez’s cellphone rang. Several urged the entire council to resign.

While the Bell issue may seem settled, it is certainly just the beginning of further scrutiny into the salaries of city employees.

A letter from fellow Los Angeles area City Managers denounced what officials were doing in Bell and the International City / County Management Association wrote a letter criticizing the Bell officials while defending that local government professional mangers should be compensated fairly, equitably, and with recognition of services provided.

The Times also reported the Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said on Thursday that an investigation into the high salaries had been made, as he called the compensation packages “almost beyond belief.”