No party affiliation through the whole article. Democrats?
That’s usually a very safe assumption.
I'd bet they are. Clues: (1) The LA Times doesn't identify anyone by party. (2) The city is 90% Hispanic. (3) The median family income is well below the national average. (4) They are allegedly engaged in massive voting fraud.
The city of Bell has been under a lot of fire lately. It is a relatively poor city - or at least most of the residents are poorer and working class people - and the city manager and councilmembers have been raking in big pay. The city manager makes over $800,000 a year, and his deputy makes more than the President. Council members make big bucks for the job they have (but probably not all that much compared to big city council members, except Bell is a very small city).
I don’t think this had anything to do with dem or rep, but it had to do with protecting their little fiefdom, their honeypots and their golden parachutes.
Some of these little cities (inside Los Angeles county, but incorporated separately) exist to serve the interests of a few. Bell Gardens, Bell, BellFlower, Hawaiian Gardens... I am not saying they are all 100% bad, and these cities incorporated to get away from Los Angeles’ corruption (or to start their own, e.g. Bell Gardens exists almost exclusively because it has a casino owner who wants it to exist and the casino provides a lot of cash to the tiny land area, provides jobs to city residents, and pays local taxes that keep the streets clean and pretty despite the lower middle class make-up of the residents).
This setup may be no different than other parts of the country, though. I had considered moving to one of these cities in the hopes of obtaining a CCW, which I cannot get as a Los Angeles resident.
Bell in particular is also dealing with a wrongful death suit involving officer shooting, I believe they are paying $7 million to settle the case.
That being said, approx. 85% of residents in Bell are latin-americans, so make up your own mind. (No, I don't capitalize American when it is preceded by a hyphen!)