UPDATE:
Mayor of Calif. city to stop taking high salary
By JOHN ROGERS (AP)
jULY 26, 2010
BELL, Calif. — The mayor of Bell apologized Monday for the excessive salaries paid to city officials and said he will step down after completing his term without pay.
Mayor Oscar Hernandez said in a statement posted on the Bell city clerk's website that the salaries were indefensible.
Four of the five members of the City Council earn about $100,000 a year for running the blue-collar city of about 40,000 people.
The city's chief administrative officer was earning nearly $800,000 a year before he resigned last week.
Hernandez last week defended the city's salaries...
Attorney general issues subpoenas in Bell salary scandal
July 26, 2010
LATimes
Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Monday issued subpoenas for hundreds of salary and employment documents from the city of Bell to determine whether top officials broke laws in awarding out-sized salaries to city administrators and City Council members.
Brown said he was moving swiftly after The Times exposed a pay scandal in the small working-class city to reassure taxpayers that the state was determined to crack down on possible wrongdoing and to warn other cities not to follow Bell's path.
"These outrageous pay practices are an insult to the hard-working people of Bell and have provoked righteous indignation in California and even across the country," Brown said.
