3 top administrators whose huge salaries sparked outrage in California city have resigned

Calif. council accepts resignations of 3 managers

BELL, Calif. — Three administrators whose huge salaries have sparked outrage in this small blue-collar suburb of Los Angeles have agreed to resign.

City Council members emerged from an hours-long closed session at midnight Friday and announced that they’d accepted the resignations of Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and Police Chief Randy Adams.

Rizzo was the highest paid at $787,637 a year — nearly twice the pay of President Barack Obama — for overseeing one of the poorest towns in Los Angeles County.

Spaccia makes $376,288 a year and Adams earns $457,000, 50 percent more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

The three will not receive severance packages, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Rizzo will step down at the end of August and Spaccia will leave at the end of September. Adams will also leave at the end of August, after completing an evaluation of the police department.

The decision was announced at midnight to a crowd of angry Bell residents who anxiously had been waiting since the City Council began its meeting at 4:30 p.m. None of the administrators attended the session, according to the Times.

Revelations about the pay sparked anger in the city of fewer than 40,000 residents. Census figures from 2008 show 17 percent of the population lives in poverty.

Residents have staged protests demanding the firings and started a recall campaign against some council members.