Bell City Council to Hold Emergency Meeting About High Salaries
Protestors and citizens hold up signs outside the Bell city council meeting on Monday (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Liz O. Baylen)
The Bell City Council this afternoon will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the extremely high salaries that have caused controversy in the small southeastern L.A. County city, according to the LA Times. Councilmembers are asking for resignations from the City Manager, Assistant City Manager and Police Chief. Respectively, the three make close to $800,000, $376,288 and $457,000 a year, easily making their salaries some of the highest in the nation for positions of that stature.
The part-time City Council may also decide upon their own salaries, which are $100,000 for most of them. For a city the size of Bell -- 36,000 -- they should be earning $4,800 a year. No proposals have been called for, but one idea is to cut it by 20%.
At a meeting on Monday, no decisions on salaries were made, despite a large protest from residents who crowded the meeting.
News cameras from various stations this morning have been juxtaposing the high salaries to a 200-person line of needy residents waiting for food across the street from city hall.