Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:15 am Post subject:
Robert Rizzo is serving time behind cars
The former Bell city administrator, who is accused of misappropriating public funds, is working as a parking lot attendant at the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach.
Steve Lopez
January 13, 2011
A tipster dropped me a line the other day to say she'd spotted an infamous former public official in Huntington Beach, working as a parking lot guard at the International Surfing Museum.
So I drove down Wednesday to have a look, and guess what: Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall.
Robert "Ratso" Rizzo seems to have a new job.
You know the name, no doubt. Rizzo is the disgraced former city administrator of Bell who was charged along with other city officials of misappropriating millions of dollars in public funds from that financially crippled community while finagling a staggering salary for himself of nearly $800,000 a year. Rizzo, referred to by a prosecutor as "an unaccountable czar," stood in a corner of the parking lot at 5th and Olive, near a mural of surfers.
"You look famous," I said to him.
He shrugged.
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That's when I introduced myself. Rizzo looked at me with surprise, then said he'd seen what I'd written about him, which may explain why he seemed a bit cool.
Call it a wild guess, but I'm betting Rizzo wasn't working as a parking attendant out of the goodness of his heart. It made me wonder if it might have something to do with his arrest last March in Huntington Beach after crashing through a mailbox with a tank full of booze.
I checked with Orange County authorities, who said that Rizzo still has to complete 80 hours of community service by April as part of a sentence that includes three years' probation.
So I asked Rizzo if the parking gig was for the DUI rap.
"I volunteer," he said.
Because he has to?
"I enjoy volunteering," said Rizzo, who previously enjoyed buying horses and visiting his nearly $1-million horse ranch in Washington state.
Gary Sahagen, the volunteer manager of the nonprofit museum, said Rizzo began working there last week, and that others have done service there to satisfy court requirements. But he wasn't sure if that was the case with Rizzo.
Well, I guess it's possible that Rizzo, anticipating a tough time in court somewhere down the line, is trying to establish that he's really just a misunderstood guy who loves public service so much, he'll do it for free.
Then again, maybe he's a surfer.
"Do you surf?" I asked, and I think this is where the relationship went south.
Rizzo gave me a long hard stare. Perhaps it was his way of suggesting it was just as likely that Jabba the Hutt was a surfer. I tried asking more questions, telling Rizzo this was his chance to come clean, but he wasn't in the mood to chat, saying his attorney had told him not to.
He then grabbed a folding chair, put on a blue security guard jacket and picked up a clipboard. His cap was pulled down over his ears as if he were trying to disappear into it.
Rizzo's job, Sahagen told me, was to make sure nobody parked for free in the small lot and then went shopping instead of going into the museum.
To be honest, I'm not sure I'd trust Rizzo with that kind of responsibility. Sahagen told me the museum is struggling financially, so I hope they have the good sense to keep Rizzo away from the books, or he'll be drawing a $100,000 pension for life after two weeks' work.
Rizzo appeared to be under the radar, with passersby failing to recognize him. Down the street at Starbucks, Bruce Aronson and Frank Reynolds were shocked to hear that Rizzo was in the neighborhood working as a parking lot guard.
"That's almost poetic justice," said Aronson, who teaches computer literacy. "I imagine they're not paying him $800,000 plus bonuses."
Michael Herbert, a jet mechanic, was on his way to Starbucks when I shared with him the identity of the parking lot guard. He said he had read all about what happened in Bell, and he wanted to ask Rizzo, "How could you do that?"
Nothing was stopping him, I told Herbert, 34. So he walked over to the parking lot and stood over Rizzo.
"How could you swindle your city like that?" Herbert asked.
Rizzo sat still as a slug.
"What if you were on the other side of that?" Herbert went on, letting him have it good. "Do you know how many lives you hurt?"
Still no response.
"Yeah, you're not answering now," Herbert said. "But you'll be thinking about these things."
I watched Rizzo help direct someone out of a tight squeeze in the parking lot and complimented him on his newfound skills, trying to loosen him up. But when I asked again if he wanted to say anything in his defense, or, better yet, if he wanted to apologize for what happened in Bell, he declined.
If you go to the surfing museum, folks, and see a glib gnome in the parking lot, please don't make the mistake of tipping him.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12121 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:53 pm Post subject:
Now we know why they couldn't find the guy that "shot" that cop last week:
LA Police say wounded officer made up story
Associated Press Thomas Watkins, Associated Press – Fri Jan 28, 6:22 am ET
LOS ANGELES – The report of a school police officer shot last week touched off one of the largest Los Angeles-area manhunts in recent memory and forced thousands of students to remain in their classrooms for hours as officers searched for the attacker.
Now law enforcement officials allege Officer Jeffrey Stenroos was lying when he said a gunman shot him in the chest as he patrolled near a San Fernando Valley high school Jan. 19. He was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of filing a false police report.
"The current state of the investigation refutes Stenroos' initial account of the incident and we are now certain that there is no outstanding suspect in this shooting," Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference Thursday night.
A law enforcement official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the case, said Stenroos was mishandling a firearm when he was shot, but he did not go into any more detail.
The gunshot hit Stenroos in his bullet proof vest and authorities said that protection saved his life. He was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital later that night.
Beck defended the aggressive police response to the shooting, which occurred one day after a gun accidentally fired in a student's backpack at another Los Angeles high school, wounding two students.
"We go where these investigations take us," he said. "Finding the truth and obtaining some form of justice is what we're about."
More than 350 officers from five agencies scoured the area, gathering hundreds of clues, canvassing neighborhoods and reaching out to residents to drum up leads in the case, Beck said.
The day of the shooting, nine schools with about 9,000 students were locked down as more than 350 police officers, sheriff's deputies and California Highway Patrol officers scoured 7 square miles of the affluent Woodland Hills neighborhood around El Camino Real High School for the gunman, described as man in his 40s with long brown hair.
Students were kept in their classrooms for hours without access to food or bathrooms, prompting anger and frustration from parents.
Authorities later mustered $100,000 in reward money for information leading to the suspected shooter's arrest.
Los Angeles Police Protective League president Paul Weber said he was "disgusted" to hear about Stenroos' arrest and apologized to the public for his actions.
"His lies set into motion the largest search for a suspect in recent history and inconvenienced thousands of people for hours," the police union president said. "If these allegations are proven true, Mr. Stenroos is now where he belongs, behind bars."
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:02 am Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
I'm betting that he'll be made an example of by the DA or whomever prosecutes.
In light of the rash of actual law enforcement officers who've been shot around the country recently, I'm sure this guy will get little or no sympathy.
Make him eat the school cafeteria food for 6 months and wipe Robert Rizzo's ass as punishment.
Pew's City Councils Study: Los Angeles Has Highest Salaries
Pew Charitable Trusts just released their study on the largest city councils in the United States, and Los Angeles is number one--when it comes to the biggest salaries. The city's salary average clocks in at $178,789, while San Antonio, the city council with the lowest salaries, sets pay at a maximum of "$1,400 per member." Los Angeles' 15-member council was also found to "spend the most per seat," at $1.7 million each and the lowest rate of elected officials in proportion to the city's population, at one official for every 255,500 residents.
To summarize: we spend the most money on salaries, we spend the most per council seat, and we have the least representation as compared to the 14 other cities in this study of the biggest city councils in the United States.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:49 am Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
From HuffPo:
Pew's City Councils Study: Los Angeles Has Highest Salaries
Pew Charitable Trusts just released their study on the largest city councils in the United States, and Los Angeles is number one--when it comes to the biggest salaries. The city's salary average clocks in at $178,789, while San Antonio, the city council with the lowest salaries, sets pay at a maximum of "$1,400 per member." Los Angeles' 15-member council was also found to "spend the most per seat," at $1.7 million each and the lowest rate of elected officials in proportion to the city's population, at one official for every 255,500 residents.
To summarize: we spend the most money on salaries, we spend the most per council seat, and we have the least representation as compared to the 14 other cities in this study of the biggest city councils in the United States.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:17 am Post subject:
bmwracer wrote:
Not getting much bang for our buck, huh?
Yeah that's the case even on the state level. For every dollar of federal taxes that flows to Washington, California only gets 78 cents back in federal spending.
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