Whipped Cream Difficulties

Lourdes Garcia, Bell’s former “director of administrative services”, who was paid $422,000 a year in that job, is on the stand now.

Remember former councilman Victor Bello? The guy who was paid a six-figure salary in his job as “assistant to the food bank coordinator”?

Garcia

…testified Thursday that she was ordered to draw up a contract for a departing council member that paid him nearly $100,000 a year, even though the job he was taking could have been handled by a volunteer.

Garcia also testified that Robert “Ratso” Rizzo

…told her in 2008 to prepare a document understating his salary and the pay of council members.
“What’s not true on the document?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller asked.
“The salary of the council,” Garcia said. “It doesn’t represent the full amount they were getting at the time.”
“What about the city administrator officer?”
“No, it’s not the right amount, ” Garcia said. “It’s only partial.”

I’m worried about the way things are going. So far, it seems to be “all Rizzo, all the time”, and there’s been very little discussion of what the indicted council members actually did (or did not) do. Of course, we’ve only heard from two witnesses so far. But if this keeps up, I’m concerned that the council members are going to get off by throwing Rizzo and Spaccia under the bus. And then I can see Rizzo and Spaccia getting off by, in turn, stating that they were following the directions given to them by the city council members, who would be free to testify for Rizzo and Spaccia.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2013 at 9:25 am and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.