The "Mayor's office may be too lavish" story keeps making the rounds. We had something on it a couple of weeks ago in which Councilman Tom Smith said he thought "the posh executive suite of the former Lincoln Nationl Corp. headquarters" was "out of step with Fort Wayne sensibilities." And Indiana's NewsCenter was given an exclusive tour so they could film, among other things, "the colonnade with columns mimicking the Lincoln Memorial Monument in Washington, D.C." Now there's a short Associated Press version that includes this wonderful sentence:
Mayor Tom Henry's spokesman says the city is trying to be frugal on renovations and that it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to remove features from the executive suite.
How nice of them to be so careful with taxpayers' dollars. They will have spent, on the building and renovations, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million, and they're worried about spending "tens of thousands" to de-luxuriate the place.
And this just in: Nearly 300 residents of Bell, Calif., took to the streets to demand the ouster of the mayor and two members of City Council who approved lavish salaries for themselves and other city officials.
This month, The Times revealed that City Manager Robert Rizzo received a $787,637 annual salary, police Chief Randy Adams received $457,000 and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia received $376,288. Rizzo earned more than President Obama, Adams earned 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and Spaccia earned more than the top administrator for Los Angeles County. All three resigned on Friday, and irate residents have now turned their attention to the City Council.
That's not to suggest our city officials are outright thieves and scoundrels like the ones in California. But funny things happen to people when they're spending other people's money. If you don't pay attention (apparently the case in Bell), you're gonna get major malfeasance. If you do pay attention, as we are inclinded to do here, you just get waste
