former governor of the state, gray davis, joins us on the very day the current governor issues a new furlough workers for thousands of state workers. welcome. thank you. we ll start here and get to all things california and america. is there a recourse here. can you see how that would even happen? how does that exist in the first place? it s an outrage. i don t know how it happened but i know the attorney general and district attorney are both investigating it. aparentally the city voted to become a charter city like 400 people voted and that allows them to charge or pay people whatever they want so the city council was getting paid $100,000 in a city where i doubt very few people make 100,000. 800,000 as the city manager did which is just an outrage and when the people found out about it they rose up against it and you saw what happened. in the scheme of skreed up things that you ve seen in your life. have more of them been in california or not in california? you know, it s
they tell us there s no money, but, then again, they re earning 800 grand a year, and our chief is earning 450,000, so that s a lot. reporter: the assistant manager is also making a lot, 376,000, and some members of the city council who only work part time have been pulling in about 100,000. shame on you, shame on you! you re disrespectful. you re a piece of [ bleep ]. reporter: as angry as he are here, they gave the city the right to become a charter city, which gave them the right to pay themselves whatever he want. my office puts people in jail for taking 10,000 or 20,000, much less 50,000. here we are talking about hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, when you add it up.
the mayor, oscar hernandez said, hey, these are in line with other cities, except they re not because we did some investigation. look what the police chief in chicago makes, # 10. happeningless, 307, new york city that s the police commissioner in new york city at 205,000. miami-dade, 119,000. randy adams, he was overseeing 25 officers making $457,000 megyn: randy. reporter: which is why the governor oh, not the governor. he wants to be governor again. i m going back in time. the attorney general, jerry brown, is now launching this investigation. he has subpoenaed hundreds of dock units, he wants to find out if there is enough there to go after these people. it is an election year, but he wants to go after them and possibly file criminal charges. and, again, it s a charter city in bell, right? so the deal is they voted themselves these pay raises.
absentee ballots trying to convince who to vote for. allegations involving state controller chung, the chief money officer in california. he is in bell right now conducting a review about those massive salaries you were talking about his investigation will take six weeks. he will pass his findings along to the attorney general of california brown. brown who is, of course, running for governor will then decide if criminal charges will be filed. the reason that bell was able to offer those big salaries is because a few years ago it voted itself a charter city, which means it has total control over the local government, the problem is, only 400 voters in bell actually voted in that charter election, shep. shepard: short of state authorities coming, in trace, how do folks plan to get these folks out of office? stat state will conduct its investigation, the county will conduct its investigation, meantime bell is trying to force
less than 400 people showed up, and they declared themselves a charter city which means they didn t fall under the state guidelines. even after last night the city council meeting and the members decided to slash their pay by 90%. those people were not happy. in fact, they spoke for five hours after the city council agreed to cut their salary saying they want to clean house, they re looking for a recall election now. listen to some of the comments from last night. people pay our taxes, and these people are ripping us off. you were a crook yesterday, you re a crook today, and you ll be a crook tomorrow. shame on you, sham on you! all of you! reporter: remember, the firestorm began when it came to light that these city officials were making such huge salaries, $787,000 a year, the assistant city manager making $376,000 a year, the police chief, randy adams, 457.