Washed It!

California pension officials are investigating the pay received by former top officials of Bell with an eye toward excluding large chunks of their salaries from retirement calculations.

A ruling against former City Manager Robert Rizzo and his colleagues could affect other officials across California who receive salaries from several government agencies simultaneously.

Rizzo is set to receive a pension of about $600,000 a year, which would make him the highest-paid pensioner in the California Public Employees’ Retirement fund. That amount is calculated from a salary of nearly $800,000.

His most recent contract split up his compensation so that his pay came not only for his work as city manager but as executive director of Bell’s Surplus Property Authority, Community Housing Authority, Public Financing Authority and Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.

The pay arrangement made it difficult for outsiders to determine Rizzo’s full salary, and it might come back to haunt him.

Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for CalPERS, said the fund is investigating whether pay that Rizzo received for jobs other than city administrator should count toward his pension. CalPERS is also looking at compensation for former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and former Police Chief Randy Adams, he said.

If CalPERS rules that pay drawn from other agencies cannot be counted for retirement calculations, it could reduce pensions received by retired Bell council members. For example, former Councilman George Cole, who during some of his tenure received pay from various agencies, is receiving a pension of nearly $50,000 a year for the part-time job.

A Times survey of city managers’ pay last month turned up officials in several cities who had been receiving payments for more than one municipal job.

Rizzo’s salary and pension benefits have prompted widespread outrage and legislation that limits the raises of local government officials.

Rizzo’s attorney, James Spertus, said he would fight efforts to reduce his client’s pension.

“Mr. Rizzo never agreed to accept less compensation or to do anything that would impact his retirement,” Spertus said.

Rizzo’s latest contracts were signed by himself and Mayor Oscar Hernandez. Former City Atty. Edward Lee said he neither prepared the contract nor approved it. Hernandez did not return calls Friday.

CalPERS itself has been sharply criticized because it knew about the high salaries paid to Rizzo and Spaccia four years ago and did nothing to stop them.

Pedro Carrillo, Bell’s interim administrative officer, said CalPERS officials recently spent about three weeks at city offices going through records. He said he expected to receive a draft report identifying any problems within 10 days.

“The salaries and pensions of certain individuals are certainly a concern of myself, the city attorney and most folks in the city of Bell,” he said.

Along with the CalPERS audit, the Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general have launched wide-ranging investigations in Bell that include the high salaries city officials received and allegations of voter fraud and improper business dealings. The state controller is also conducting an investigation.

A review of records by The Times showed that City Council members were paid for their work on commissions that rarely met or did so for only a few minutes.

Questions about Rizzo’s pension may be the result of five new contracts he signed in September 2008, two months after his previous one went into effect. Old contracts paid him for being city manager. The new contracts paid him as city manager and as executive director of the four city commissions.

His total compensation remained the same. He received about $221,460 a year to run the city, and the remaining $566,177 was split among the authorities.

This final contract was not provided to The Times in its original request for Rizzo’s contract in June, a violation of the California Public Records Act.

In addition, Bell’s City Council on Friday announced plans to sue former city administrators, consultants and attorneys for actions that led to the city’s crisis.

City leaders said they suspect Rizzo conducted city business using his personal e-mail account and issued a subpoena to obtain copies of messages and computer files going back five years

The decision to subpoena the e-mails came after The Times reported that Rizzo had given city loans of nearly $400,000 to two businesses without public notice or council approval.

Rizzo was ordered to appear in person and produce copies of the e-mails by the next City Council meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 20.

Spertus said his client wants the facts to come out, but the city has refused to talk to him.

“It would not surprise me if the city of Bell or other agencies in this political time … tried to pursue criminal or civil actions against Mr. Rizzo that are unfounded,” Spertus said.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

ruben.vives@latimes.com
In wake of Bell scandal, CalPERS may change pension calculation rules

A string of car-bomb attacks killed at least 45 people across Iraq on Wednesday. The violence shook at least seven cities from north to south and appeared timed to undermine confidence in the Iraqi army and police as the U.S. military ends it formal combat mission in the country. The bloodshed coincided with Iraqis’ mounting frustrations over the failure of political blocs to form a new government nearly six months after national elections. U.S. officials have insisted Iraqi forces are up to securing the country, even if Iraq is locked in a political crisis.

In the deadliest explosion Wednesday, a car bomb struck a police station near the offices of the governor in Kut, southeast of Baghdad. The attack killed 16 and wounded 18, according to Kut’s governor, Latif Turfa. In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle at a police station in the northeastern neighborhood of Qahira, killing at least 15 people, including six policemen, police said. The blast left another 60 people wounded.

Explosions disrupted the northeastern province of Diyala. At least three people were killed when a parked car blew up by the City Council in Muqdadiyah in northeastern Diyala, according to police.

In Baqubah, Diyala’s capital, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol, leaving one policeman and two civilians dead. Another 16 people were wounded in the blast. Insurgents also blew up the homes of three policemen and one electoral commission employee in Baqubah’s outer district of Buhruz, according to police. Five people were wounded and the attackers planted the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for extremists, which includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, police added.

The strife also spread to Anbar province. The western region, once the symbol of the country’s Sunni insurgency, had quieted after 2007 due to a local revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq. But the last year has seen a return to violence. In the province’s capital Ramadi, a car bomb struck a bus station, killing two policemen and a civilian, police said. In Fallujah, the province’s other main city, a council member was killed when assailants planted a bomb on his car. A policeman also died when assailants blew up his car. Another three policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during their patrol. A bomb also killed an Iraqi soldier in the center of Fallujah, police said.

In the Shiite heartland, insurgents also caused mayhem. Militants struck in Basra, setting off a car bomb that left 11 people wounded. A car bomb attack in the southern pilgrimage city of Karbala by a police station left another 19 wounded, according to police and medical sources.

The attacks followed the announcement by the U.S. military on Tuesday that their troop numbers had now dropped to 49,700 soldiers as soldiers switched from a combat mission to the job of training the Iraqi army and police and assisting them when asked. Iraqis are concerned that the scaled-back American presence could help fuel violence.

nathaniel.parker@latimes.com

Staff writer Nadeem Hamid contributed to this report.
Car bombings across Iraq kill 45

Engineers began loading the fuel roads into a Russian-built nuclear power reactor on Iran’s southern Persian Gulf coast Saturday morning, a relatively important milestone in the construction and operation of the long-delayed plant, Iran’s state television reported.

The plant has become the center of an international controversy. Iranians, Russians and Americans have invested the reactor with a symbolic significance beyond its ability to produce electricity and advance Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The Bush administration’s former U.N. envoy, John Bolton, made waves and set off war jitters this week after he said in a television appearance that Israel had days to bomb the plant before the fuel cells were loaded or risk creating a radioactive cloud that would harm too many civilians. Iran countered with its own threat. “In that case we will lose a power plant, but Israel’s existence will be in danger,” Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahdi said.