The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Los Angeles:
Bell Officials Arrested

Sep 27, 2010

Eight top officials of the city of Bell were arrested last week. They are being charged with stealing millions of dollars from the treasury of this working-class city of 40,000 near Los Angeles.

County and State authorities act as if they were shocked by the corruption in Bell. Really? The super-high salaries of Bell officials were no secret. And the State pension fund granted Bell an exemption from its rules back in 2006, so that the City Manager could receive a pension worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year!

Nor is Bell alone. In several cities in L.A. County, city officials make near, sometimes over, one million dollars a year.

No, California officials aren’t shocked–they’ve been accomplices to these corrupt schemes for years.

But they are politicians–and this is an election year!