Cross-posted on PublicCEO.com
The world of local government shook on July 15.
It was the day that two Los Angeles Times journalists, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, broke the shocking story of corruption in the small city of Bell.
"Bell,
one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, pays its top officials
some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000
annually for its city manager, according to documents reviewed by The
Times."
Each day following the initial report, more news dripped from the leaky faucet in Bell, flooding the media world.
The city was exposed. The public’s reaction was impassioned. Local government officials everywhere were examined.
Seemingly
each new day, Gottlieb and Vives continue to break another outrageous
angle of the Bell story. Nearly a month after the initial report broke,
Gottlieb says the story is, "nowhere near dead."
How exactly did the scandal in the city of Bell break?
The
trail began in early July, when Bell’s neighboring city of Maywood laid
off all of its city employees and outsourced its services to Bell.
Gottlieb and Vives wrote the story, and soon learned that the Los
Angeles County District Attorney was investigating Bell for high
salaries.
Gottlieb said that they were hearing things about Bell
City Manager Robert Rizzo’s salary being near $300,000 to $400,000. So,
the two reporters headed to Bell’s City Hall looking for hard numbers.
"We
expected to see the contracts," Gottlieb said in a phone interview with
PublicCEO. "We expected they would just give them to us."
But, for reasons that are now obvious, Bell wasn’t so quick to hand out the information.
Rizzo
wouldn’t come out of his office. The reporters were forced to fill out
a California Public Records Act request for the information. The city
even charged a dollar for the Xerox copy.
Then came the waiting.
The reporters waited 10 days before obtaining the information, calling
Bell City Clerk, Rebecca Valdez, each day to check on the status of
their request. Sometimes Valdez wouldn’t return calls, other days she
would simply say the city was working on it.
On the ninth day of waiting, Gottlieb and Vives got a call from the city of Bell. Rizzo wanted to talk.
"Rizzo came to the phone and said they had the documents but wanted to sit down and talk," Gottlieb said.
The
meeting was – somewhat oddly – held in a conference room at a park in
Bell the next day. Rizzo wasn’t alone. With him was Assistant City
Manager Angela Spaccia, Police Chief Randy Adams, City Councilman Luis
Artiga, Mayor Oscar Hernandez and two lawyers.
"I knew something was up," Gottlieb said. "My first thought was, ‘why are two lawyers here?’"
The
city officials delivered the documents with salary information. Neither
reporter had looked at the documents when Gottlieb fired the obvious
question towards Rizzo: "So, how much do you make?"
"He coughs
out $700,000," Gottlieb said. "It was such an outrageous figure that I
wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. I said, ‘how much?’ and he said it
again. I turned to the police chief and asked the same question. He
said $457,000. I then turned to Angela Spaccia and she said she didn’t
know. Rizzo said she made about $350,000."
Gottlieb said you
could feel the tension in the room. He said it calmed down later and
Rizzo was actually friendly. There was never a plea to the reporters
not to write the story.
"He was utterly unrepentant," Gottlieb said.
At
that point, Gottlieb told Rizzo that he must be the highest paid City
Manager in Los Angeles County. Rizzo replied, "I am sure I am."
Talking
with one another after the meeting, both reporters knew that Rizzo
wasn’t just the highest paid City Manager in the county, but also in
the state – and probably in the country.
"Of all the stories I have written, this has brought the highest level of outrage," Gottlieb said.
With
the outrage has come an outpouring of further tips and information to
lead ongoing investigations into Bell and other cities. The result is a
continuous stream of breaking news.
This past weekend,
Gottlieb and Vives furthered the story by reporting that Rizzo received
a package of benefits that increased his annual compensation to more
than $1.5 million.
"From that story, we came up with five more stories," Gottlieb said.
The stories by Gottlieb and Vives have changed how local governments operate now and into the future. The impact of the Bell scandal is far-reaching, leading to transparency policies for local governments throughout California.
At
a time when newspapers continue to take an economic pounding, caught
between a loyalty to the print publication and a search for an online
business model, the two L.A. Times journalists have proven the
importance of keen journalism.
For that alone, Gottlieb and Vives are deserving of a Pulitzer.
James Spencer can be reached at jspencer@publicceo.com
or on Twitter @PublicCEO