California Scheming

Last year, Bell, California made national headlines when investigative reports uncovered that the city administrator was being paid $787,000 annually and the Police Chief was on the dole for $457,000, which included 20 weeks paid vacation.  City Council members were also raking in $100,000 while the median income of Bell (population 38,000) was $28,000.  Bell is not a swank sun drenched seaside resort with movie stars, it is a small gritty industrial town just outside of Los Angeles, so these expenditures were even more surprising.  When word spread about this, the Bell City Council got rid of some officials and the California Attorney General’s office sued to recover millions of dollars authorities say a handful of disgraced former officials looted from Bell.

Today, there may be another Bell, California brewing.  According to the Orange County Register, “Less than one month after Costa Mesa’s elected officials approved issuing more than 200 preliminary layoff notices because of budget troubles, the city has hired a communications specialist who will earn up to $3,000 a week.”  At a clip of $144,000 per year, that expenditure is indefensible considering that estimated median household income in 2009 was $65,532.

Defending the move, Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan called the move “prudent because Costa Mesa’s website and ability to interact with residents are in ‘incredibly bad shape,’ and its ‘entire communications system is just poor.’”

Not knowing exactly which website is the official Costa Mesa website, I came across http://www.ci.costa-mesa.ca.us/, which looks official enough, and according to that website, “The Costa Mesa City Council has established the Costa Mesa Homeless Task Force to examine the homeless population demographics within the City and develop appropriate short term and long term strategies to best serve these individuals. It is estimated that the work of the Task Force will be between 6-9 months.”  It seems that $144,000 would probably be better spent addressing the homeless problem rather than a communications specialist.

This is the type of expenditure that frustrates taxpayers and eventually causes political figures to have very short careers.