A City Outsources Everything. Sky Doesn’t Fall.
Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press
Sgt. Enrique Gonzalez, left, and other Maywood, Calif., officers during the department’s last inspection before being disbanded.
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: July 19, 2010
J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
Despite Maywood’s financial difficulties, the opening ceremonies for its Little League program were still held on Saturday.
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“I’m walking along at night carrying an overstuffed bag,” he said, describing two of the incidents. “I look suspicious. This shows the sheriff’s department is doing its job.”
Chalk up another Maywood resident who approves of this city’s unusual experience in municipal governing. City officials last month fired all of Maywood’s employees and outsourced their jobs.
While many communities are fearfully contemplating extensive cuts, Maywood says it is the first city in the nation in the current downturn to take an ax to everyone.
The school crossing guards were let go. Parking enforcement was contracted out, City Hall workers dismissed, street maintenance workers made redundant. The public safety duties of the Police Department were handed over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
At first, people in this poor, long-troubled and heavily Hispanic city southeast of Los Angeles braced for anarchy.
Senior citizens were afraid they would be assaulted as they walked down the street. Parents worried the parks would be shut and their children would have nowhere to safely play. Landlords said their tenants had begun suggesting that without city-run services they would no longer feel obliged to pay rent.
The apocalypse never arrived. In fact, it seems this city was so bad at being a city that outsourcing — so far, at least — is being viewed as an act of municipal genius.
“We don’t want to be the model for other cities to lay off their employees,” said Magdalena Prado, a spokeswoman for the city who works on contract. “But our residents have been somewhat pleased.”
That includes Mayor Ana Rosa Rizo, who was gratified to see her husband get a parking ticket on July 1, hours after the Police Department had been disbanded. The ticket was issued by enforcement clerks for the neighboring city of Bell, which is being paid about $50,000 a month by Maywood to perform various services.
The reaction is all the more remarkable because this is not a feel-good city. City Council hearings run hot, council members face repeated recall efforts and city officials fight in public. “You single-handedly destroyed the city,” the city treasurer told the City Council at its most recent meeting.
Four years ago, in what was probably the high-water mark of acrimony in Maywood, a deputy city clerk was arrested and accused of soliciting a hit man to kill a city councilman. The deputy clerk, Hector Duarte, was concerned that his salary might be reduced or his job eliminated during a previous round of bad fiscal times; he was sentenced to a year in jail and six months of anger management counseling.
This time, the councilman, Felipe Aguirre, has received no threats and has seen remarkably little anger. “This is a very bad economy,” said Mr. Aguirre, who like the mayor and fellow council members receives a stipend from the city of $347 every two weeks. Even if city employees lose their benefits, he said, “very good workers are still going to hang around.”
Jose B. Garcia, an assistant city planner, will now be working on contract. “I still have a job,” he said. “In that sense, I can’t complain too much.”
Maywood, which covers slightly more than one square mile, is one of the most densely populated cities in the country. The official population of 30,000 is believed to considerably understate the actual total of about 50,000.
It has some of the ills that plague other cities. Property taxes, a primary source of revenue, have declined to $900,000 from $1.2 million in 2007. Sales taxes have also dropped. But Maywood’s biggest problem by far has been its police department.
A report by the state attorney general last year concluded the culture of the department “is one permeated with sexual innuendo, harassment, vulgarity, discourtesy to members of the public as well as among officers, and a lack of cultural, racial and ethnic sensitivity and respect.”
There are $19 million in claims pending against the police, which made it effectively impossible for the city to get insurance for any of its employees. If Maywood did not dismiss the municipal work force, officials said, bankruptcy would have been the only option. The total number of laid-off employees, including those in the Police Department, was about 60, city officials said.
“Just like the driver who has three and then four and then five accidents, things were starting to look ugly,” said Angela Spaccia, the acting city manager who is on loan from the city of Bell.
The budget for the Police Department last year was nearly $8 million, more than half of Maywood’s revenues. The contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will cost about half of that. Insurance premiums for the city have fallen to $200,000 from $1 million.
The deputies have already engendered good will, Councilman Aguirre said, by cracking down on a local hotel that was a haven for prostitution.
And others said they have seen an increased police presence in the last few weeks. “The deputies are there right away,” said Maria Mendez, who has lived in Maywood for most of her 73 years. “Before you used to wait and wait for the police.”
One reason for the general enthusiasm might lie in the fact that many of the nonpolice workers have been rehired on contract, so in some cases the faces encountered by the public remain the same. In other words, no one has noticed much going wrong because there was not much to notice in the first place.
The five crossing guards, for instance, are doing the same work but are paid by a security company.
And it is possible the bad news is just slow in arriving. Maywood has dabbled in contracting before, and it has run awry in some instances. Skeptics cited the example of two handball courts in a Maywood park. City officials said it cost an outsized sum — hundreds of thousands of dollars — for a contractor to build three concrete walls.
A few people, extrapolating from personal experience, are convinced that the city is still on a downward path.
Jerald Bennett was on his way to the $2 seniors’ lunch at the bustling Maywood recreational center when another car made an illegal turn and almost rammed him. “It seems like that sort of thing is happening more and more,” he said. “They’re not patrolling the streets.”
For others, however, the celebration here is practically palpable. Freed from its employees, Maywood has nowhere to go but up, they say.
“Remember the Soviet Union?” said Hector Alvarado, who heads a civic advocacy group. “They had a lot of bureaucracy, and they lost. Maywood was like that. Now people know if they don’t work, they will be laid off. Much better this way.”
*****************************************************************************
Angry Bell Residents Pack City Hall
Decision to fire the city's top brass is postponed until next week.
Angry Bell Residents Speak Out (July 19, 2010)
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BELL, Calif. -- So many City of Bell residents showed up to Monday night's city council meeting to express their anger over the high salary scandal, the meeting had to be postponed until next week.
According to witnesses in the meeting, there was chaos in Bell City Hall as residents packed the floor and tried to make public comment to the mayor and council members.
Earlier Monday, the vice mayor of Bell said Monday that the city's highly paid top administrator will resign or be fired in the wake of an L.A. Times report that he and other top officials are among the highest-paid municipal executives in the nation.
Teresa Jacobo said she expected city Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo to lose his job at Monday's council meeting.
"Tonight we have a meeting where we will take drastic measures," she said. "Unfortunately, we had too much trust in people we felt were doing an excellent job."
She added: "Mr. Rizzo will have to go one way or another." Asked if Rizzo would resign, she said, "We hope."
Earlier Monday, a Bell city councilman called for a "completely open and transparent" investigation into the salaries of top executives and his council colleagues, saying if a Times report that Bell officials are among the highest-paid administrators and elected municipal leaders in the nation is true, they should resign immediately.
Councilman Lorenzo Velez, who was appointed to the council in the working-class city in October, also said he received only $310.62 every two weeks for his work as a councilman -- far less than the $100,000 his colleagues collected annually.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is investigating the council salaries. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, the D.A.'s office reported.
Last week, the Times reported that Bell, one of the poorest cities in L.A. County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager. Rizzo earns nearly twice the salary of President Obama, Police Chief Randy Adams about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia more than the chief executive for Los Angeles County.
Bell's Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo gets an annual salary of $787,637, and the city's police chief makes $457,000 a year -- about 50-percent more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and more than double New York City's police commissioner.
Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers.
Rizzo's contract calls for 12-percent raises each July, the same as his top deputy, according to documents obtained under the California Public Records Act.
Rizzo, who has run Bell's day-to-day civic affairs since 1993, was unapologetic about his salary -- which is nearly twice as much as President Obama's reported salary of $400,000 a year.
"If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business," he told KTLA partner, The Los Angeles Times.
"I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done."
Spaccia agreed, adding: "I would have to argue you get what you pay for."
Even the city's mayor is defending the salaries, saying the community credits Rizzo for the city's success.
Bell has less than 40,000 residents. Its per capita income is about half that for the U.S.
By comparison, Manhattan Beach, a far wealthier city with about 7,000 fewer people, paid its most recent city manager $257,484 a year.
The city manager of Long Beach, with a population close to 500,000, earns $235,000 annually.
The salaries do not appear to violate any laws, said Dave Demerjian, head of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division.
State law governs how much city council members can be paid, but not the amounts that council members decide to pay administrators, Demerjian said.
The district attorney is looking into the salaries of Bell's City Council members -- about $100,000 a year for part-time positions. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, Demerjian said.
According to witnesses in the meeting, there was chaos in Bell City Hall as residents packed the floor and tried to make public comment to the mayor and council members.
Earlier Monday, the vice mayor of Bell said Monday that the city's highly paid top administrator will resign or be fired in the wake of an L.A. Times report that he and other top officials are among the highest-paid municipal executives in the nation.
Teresa Jacobo said she expected city Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo to lose his job at Monday's council meeting.
"Tonight we have a meeting where we will take drastic measures," she said. "Unfortunately, we had too much trust in people we felt were doing an excellent job."
She added: "Mr. Rizzo will have to go one way or another." Asked if Rizzo would resign, she said, "We hope."
Earlier Monday, a Bell city councilman called for a "completely open and transparent" investigation into the salaries of top executives and his council colleagues, saying if a Times report that Bell officials are among the highest-paid administrators and elected municipal leaders in the nation is true, they should resign immediately.
Councilman Lorenzo Velez, who was appointed to the council in the working-class city in October, also said he received only $310.62 every two weeks for his work as a councilman -- far less than the $100,000 his colleagues collected annually.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is investigating the council salaries. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, the D.A.'s office reported.
Last week, the Times reported that Bell, one of the poorest cities in L.A. County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager. Rizzo earns nearly twice the salary of President Obama, Police Chief Randy Adams about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia more than the chief executive for Los Angeles County.
Bell's Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo gets an annual salary of $787,637, and the city's police chief makes $457,000 a year -- about 50-percent more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and more than double New York City's police commissioner.
Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers.
Rizzo's contract calls for 12-percent raises each July, the same as his top deputy, according to documents obtained under the California Public Records Act.
Rizzo, who has run Bell's day-to-day civic affairs since 1993, was unapologetic about his salary -- which is nearly twice as much as President Obama's reported salary of $400,000 a year.
"If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business," he told KTLA partner, The Los Angeles Times.
"I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done."
Spaccia agreed, adding: "I would have to argue you get what you pay for."
Even the city's mayor is defending the salaries, saying the community credits Rizzo for the city's success.
Bell has less than 40,000 residents. Its per capita income is about half that for the U.S.
By comparison, Manhattan Beach, a far wealthier city with about 7,000 fewer people, paid its most recent city manager $257,484 a year.
The city manager of Long Beach, with a population close to 500,000, earns $235,000 annually.
The salaries do not appear to violate any laws, said Dave Demerjian, head of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division.
State law governs how much city council members can be paid, but not the amounts that council members decide to pay administrators, Demerjian said.
The district attorney is looking into the salaries of Bell's City Council members -- about $100,000 a year for part-time positions. Normally, council members in a city the size of Bell would be paid about $400 a month, Demerjian said.
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