The City of Bell in California is setting a new standard for thieving politicians. It apparently overcharged on property taxes to pay huge salaries for elected city politicians. 

The City of Bell is a non-descript town in Los Angeles that has been making national news. The city has roughly 35,000 residents who are blue collar and bring in an average salary of $35,000 each. It is a good, solid working class neighborhood. 

So, what is the problem in Bell? The politicians, of course. They have been raising their salaries to absurd levels. The Chief of Police, City Manager and Assistant City Manger were all earning many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary. The board members for the city were also pulling in well over $100,000 a year as well. All for a city were workers have an average salary of $35,000.

As you can imagine, the discovery of these salary figures did not go over well. The citizens went ballistic and rightly so. They set up enthusiast protests for the next city meeting. The Chief of Police and two managers saw which way the wind was blowing and simply resigned before then. The board members were so chagrined that they voted to drop their salaries to $9,000, a salary reduction of over 90 percent!

Now things are getting even worse. The California comptroller has been analyzing the finances of Bell and has found something very disturbing. The city somehow raised the property tax rates above illegal levels starting in 2007! By law, tax rates had to be frozen at 1983 levels. Gee, I wonder what city officials used that money for? 

As you can imagine, the game is up in Bell. Citizens are outraged and state officials are opening up a variety of investigations. Current and former city officials are being subpoenaed and one can expect charges. Wow, if only they could do the same thing with Washington, D.C.!