Tuesday’s City Council meeting was yet another reminder of why El Cerrito residents struggle to trust city leadership. What was presented as a simple discussion about the pool turned into something far more revealing — and far more troubling.
Councilmember Rebecca Saltzman echoed a familiar refrain: we’d better do it now, because prices will only go up. It’s a convenient argument — and politically appealing — but dangerously incomplete. Prices continuously rise over time. The real question is whether the City has done its due diligence to ensure that what it’s buying is justified, efficient, and sustainable. In this case, it has not.
What Saltzman and others overlook is that prices don’t just rise — they increase significantly even triple when you skip the homework. When a city fails to conduct reasonable inquiry, verify assumptions, or scrutinize long-term financial impacts, taxpayers pay the price — again and again.
It’s the same “rush now, reconcile later” approach that sent BART to the fiscal cliff.
Decisions made under the guise of urgency may feel bold in the moment, but they’re almost always born from a failure to ask the right questions.
Bundling, Blurring, and Burying the Truth
Item 9B — “Swim Center Lap Pool Renovation Options” — should have been straightforward. Instead, it quietly bundled an entirely separate issue: the replacement of a fire truck.
That was not disclosed in the agenda title, nor communicated in advance to the public or the Council. Only during the meeting did staff reveal that both the pool and the fire vehicle would be discussed together, with overlapping funding considerations and unclear implications for the City’s already-strained reserves.
It’s not just poor communication; it’s poor governance. When leadership allows key spending decisions to be obscured by vague or misleading presentation, and under the guise of an emergency, it erodes the very trust that transparency is supposed to build.
Misleading Numbers and Misguided Confidence
Finance Manager Claire Coleman told the Council that the City meets its 17 percent fund-balance goal — but that statement only holds if you combine the emergency reserve with unrestricted funds.
The emergency reserve is not a piggy bank. It exists for earthquakes, fires, or natural disasters — not fiscal mismanagement. Counting it toward the City’s operating cushion is like claiming you’re financially secure because you haven’t yet touched your 401(k).
This accounting sleight of hand presents a rosy picture while ignoring the hard truth: El Cerrito continues to spend down reserves that it cannot afford to replace.
A Pattern, Not a Mistake
These lapses aren’t isolated. They are part of a pattern — one that prioritizes expedience over evidence. Each time the City rushes a decision without a clear, long-term plan, it reinforces a culture of reaction instead of reflection.
If El Cerrito wants residents to believe in its fiscal stewardship, its leaders must prove they are capable of discipline, not just decision-making. The public deserves a council that probes, questions, and demands comprehensive analysis — not one that defaults to fear of higher future costs as a justification for spending now.
The Bottom Line
El Cerrito’s leadership needs to remember: “We better do it now” is not a strategy. It’s an excuse.
Sound financial management means asking: what are the trade-offs? What are the long-term impacts? How will this affect reserves, debt, and future priorities?
Until those questions are answered — publicly and transparently — residents have every reason to remain skeptical.
It’s time for leadership that values accountability over urgency, prudence over panic, and truth over talking points.
Call to Action: Demand Accountability Before Another Dollar Is Spent
El Cerrito residents must insist on more than empty assurances and rushed votes. Before authorizing another withdrawal from the City’s reserves, the Council should be required to request a comprehensive fiscal impact analysis that details how each expenditure affects reserves over the next five years; a public justification for bundling unrelated items — like the pool renovation and fire truck purchase — into a single discussion; and a clear accounting of dedicated funds, such as the existing pool tax, to show exactly how those dollars have been used.
Email your Councilmembers. Attend the next meeting. Ask the hard questions. Because if city leadership won’t exercise due diligence on its own, it’s up to residents to demand it.
Transparency is not a courtesy — it’s a covenant between the government and the people it serves. Let’s hold El Cerrito accountable for it.
El Cerrito Committee for Responsible Government (ECCRG) 