By Gary Walker

The revelations of exorbitant pay to members of the Bell City Council, its city manager and police chief have produced shockwaves of public outrage and spurred criminal investigations into the apparent government malfeasance.

How it became possible for the working-class East L.A. city’s elected officials to enrich themselves and top administrators lies partially in a series of obscure procedures in a city-sponsored proposal launched five years ago, which permitted the council to change the city’s status from a general law city, as well as a subsequent special election with minuscule voter participation.

In 2005 — the same year Culver City began its year-long process of revising its city charter — Bell held a special election that changed its charter to allow the municipality with a population of 37,000 to become a charter city. Portrayed to the public as a method to gain increased local control, the ballot initiative also included a provision that exempted Bell’s governing body from the state exemption that caps pay for city councils and permitted them to raise their salaries to more than $100,000 annually.

Less than 400 of the city’s registered voters took part in the election and voter apathy often opens the door to the type of shenanigans that occurred in Bell, according to Jessica Levinson of the Center for Governmental Studies.

“People who live in local jurisdictions know what they need best and local control can be beneficial to a city and its residents,” said Levinson, the center’s director of political reform. “But residents should know that at times certain changes can lead to increased abuses by city governments if they aren’t vigilant and don’t fully understand what they’re voting for when you change a city charter.”

During Culver City’s charter review, scant public participation occurred until the final version of the city’s blueprint for governance was formalized, approved by the city council and placed on the 2006 municipal ballot during the election for two seats on the council.

Councilman Andrew Weissman, who chaired the charter review committee, was not surprised that few citizens attended the 20-plus public meetings, which updated the charter’s language and changed the city’s form of government from a chief administrative officer-style to the current arrangement, which employs a city manager.

But he and others were discouraged that few residents took part in the two widely publicized town hall meetings. “We would have been delighted to have people at the various forums that were held,” Weissman told the News, the only news organization that attended the charter committee and town hall meetings. “But I daresay that it was not due to the lack of publicity and information [that was disseminated].”

Linda Shahanian was one of the few who did attend the town hall meetings or many of the commission discussions. Shahanian, a former city planning commissioner, said the low attendance was similar to other forums in Culver City.

“People generally only tend to get involved when they feel that they will be negatively, and sometimes positively, impacted by a policy decision,” she said. “Charter reform was a somewhat esoteric concept, I think, for most people.”

Shahanian said that friends and acquaintances seemed interested in discussing perhaps the central change to the city’s governing document: The move from chief administrative officer to city manager.

“I think many people could relate to having one central boss instead of five,” she said.

Public documents on the Internet and sent via traditional mail could entice more public attendance to civic matters if they were written in a way that offered more inclusion to those who do not generally take an interest in politics, said Mehgan Sahli-Wells.

“I think that Culver City could do a better job by changing some of the language in its public notification so that it appeals to a great percentage of the residents,” said Sahli-Wells, a community activist who ran for a seat on the council this spring. “Other cities do things that make their notices more appealing to a broader section of its citizens.”

Weissman, who took part in a series of debates on the pros and cons of the charter revision, said Culver City publicized what the newly created governing document would contain to a degree that many other cities have not done. “The degree of publicity of what the charter would do was vastly different than elsewhere,” he asserted.

Culver City Unified School District Board member Karlo Silbiger says keeping abreast of events that could alter local development guidelines, employee contracts and charter revisions are not as difficult and cumbersome as they appear. “Our council meetings are on the Internet and on podcasts, and the agendas are also online, he said. “If people aren’t watching what their elected officials are doing, in many cases they won’t do what they’re supposed to be doing, which is represent the best interests of the public.”

Sahli-Wells said that while many Bell residents appeared not to know or understand the ramifications of the special election, it was surprising to hear that four of the five City Council members now say they did not either. “I think it’s amazing that they have claimed that they did not understand the language of the new charter,” she said. “It seems that they could have done a much better job of notifying their residents about how these new changes would affect them, including the salaries that the council would be receiving.”

Levinson feels that the public must take a more active role in voting and informing themselves on important civic issues in their cities and counties, but she is aware that often things like charter reform are seen as abstract concepts that can be difficult to fully comprehend.

“People need to know what their elected officials are asking for in special elections, ballot initiatives and charter reform, but that process of research and analysis takes significant amounts of time,” she noted.

“The updating and revision of the city’s charter took a year to complete,” Weissman said. “It’s probably not surprising that there was so little attendance, because that is a long time to hold the public’s attention.”

Levinson feels that this is where reporters can illuminate matters than seem complex. “The press plays a vitally important role uncovering things like what happened in Bell,” she said. “We depend on the press to examine how governments are functioning.”

Another statute in the Bell charter may cause residents at the forefront of a citizen political uprising in the wake of the salary scandal to reconsider their desire to remove the majority of their council from office.

A citizen action group, the Bell Association to Stop the Abuse, has launched a recall campaign against four of the five members of the council, who have pledged to relinquish 90% of their salaries after news of their pay was reported.

Language in the new charter mandates that three members are needed to conduct city business, and if the four were successfully recalled, Bell could not approve routine matters such as expenditures, new contracts or development agreements until new elections are held.

Assistant City Atty. Heather Baker said there is a mechanism in the city charter that would allow Culver City to function in the event of an emergency that left the council with less than an official quorum.

 “At any time there are three or four vacancies on the City Council, the remaining member or members shall constitute a quorum for the purposes of holding a meeting to take action pursuant to this section,” states Section 604 of the charter, referring to a special election that must be held when vacancies occur on the council.

“This would allow the city to continue to conduct business,” explained Baker, who participated in all of the charter review meetings.

While he did not equate the situation in Bell to -anything that has transpired in Culver City, Silbiger called attention to new Culver City City Manager John Nachbar’s contract, which will pay him $20,000 for moving expenses and temporary housing, as well as a $7,200 yearly car allowance. “I’m not suggesting that it’s right or wrong, but I wonder how many of our residents know about that?” the school board member asked.

Silbiger also cited an example of a previously unknown detail in the contract of a former a high-ranking official’s contract that caught many at the school district by surprise. Former CCUSD Superintendent Dr. Myrna Rivera Coté, who resigned in May, had a provision in her contract in which all of her sick days began July 1. Had the board been unable to find a replacement before that date, it would have been required to pay Coté for those additional days, Silbiger said.

“And any ‘positive’ review that she received automatically extended her contract,” said Silbiger, who attended several school board meeting prior to his election to the board.

While he agrees that those elected to office are required to act in the public’s best interest, Weissman said the electorate must bear some responsibility if they do not pay closer attention to actions that can often have a significant effect on their lives, like changing or updating the city’s constitution.

“In situations like Bell, there are unfortunate choices that were made,” the councilman said. “But I don’t really know who else the public can blame if you’re not involved in voting and other aspects of civic responsibilities.