If there were an Olympic event for exploiting loopholes, our City Manager would be bringing home gold. Over and over again, residents are told that this tax or that funding source is for a specific purpose. We are assured the money is restricted, safeguarded, and protected from misuse. And yet—time and again—the funds end up blended into the General Fund, with little to no evidence they were used as promised. This isn’t accidental. It’s structural. It’s enabled by vague language and political coordination.
The City received approximately $6 million in federal ARPA funds intended to support community recovery following COVID—economic relief, public health response, and targeted community investment. Instead, the City Manager used a loophole to classify the money as “operations,” allowing it to be swept into the General Fund. Once there, the trail went cold. No clear accounting. No public-facing report showing how those dollars directly benefited the community. What was billed as targeted federal relief became flexible general revenue.
This wasn’t a one-off. The pool tax was marketed for a specific recreational purpose and ended up subsidizing broader City operations. The utility users tax was sold as a way to stabilize essential services, but it was folded into the General Fund. The real property transfer tax (RPPT) was promoted as a tool to support long-term community needs, like a senior center and library, but was again absorbed and blended until it became effectively untraceable. Each time, voters were given a purpose. Each time, execution told a different story.
We are now being asked to approve another parcel tax. Supporters point to reassuring language: construction, library operating costs, and community services. It sounds specific until you look closer. Unlike parcel taxes in neighboring cities, this measure is deliberately loose. There are no hard caps. No precise definitions. No meaningful restrictions prevent funds from covering City overhead.
The City’s recent service delivery study now allows departments to allocate a portion of central administrative costs to individual funded programs. In practical terms, this means that portions of the City Manager’s salary, along with costs for executive support, finance, human resources, and general administration, can be charged directly to the library budget.
While this cost-allocation model is presented as a technical accounting improvement, its real impact is more consequential. It enables the City to shift a significant share of overhead expenses onto the library fund—effectively redistributing General Fund costs into another tax-supported program.
This practice is likely sufficient, at least on paper, to cover ongoing over-expenditures within the library’s operating budget. However, it does not resolve the underlying structural imbalance. The base level of spending continues to exceed the revenue generated by the funding measure itself.
As a result, the City is not correcting the cost problem—it is relocating it to another funding source – again at residents expense.
Historically, this mismatch between recurring expenses and recurring revenues has led to repeated drawdowns of reserves. Instead of aligning service levels with sustainable funding, the City has relied on one-time balances and internal transfers to close the gap. The new allocation framework risks continuing this pattern under a different name.
A sustainable operating model requires more than creative accounting. It requires aligning staffing, administration, and service levels with realistic, long-term revenue—not masking structural deficits by transferring them into separate tax streams.
So even if the measure says funds are for library purposes, a substantial share can legally flow back to City Hall. This is exactly why the language is vague. This is exactly why it matters.
Supporters also suggest this project will help create a downtown. It won’t.
No There is no credible economic case for the claim that adding low-income housing suddenly produces a retail renaissance. Housing alone does not create a downtown. Spending power does. Foot traffic does. Anchors do. And right now, El Cerrito is losing them. Barnes & Noble is gone. The fabric store is gone. There are no anchor stores. Yes, Trader Joe’s is great. Marshall’s is fine. But two national chains do not make a downtown. They make a convenient errand stop. A real downtown requires diverse retail, independent businesses, evening activity, and visitors from outside the city. We are not attracting those conditions. We are losing them.
High taxes don’t invite investment. El Cerrito already has high property taxes, a transfer tax, a utility tax, multiple parcel taxes, and constant talk of “just one more.” Businesses look at that and go elsewhere. Retail follows disposable income and predictable costs. El Cerrito offers neither. Housing policy and economic development are not the same thing. Adding subsidized housing does not automatically generate retail demand. In many cases, it increases service costs without increasing local spending. Calling this a downtown strategy is not optimistic. It is misleading.
We are also being told this new tax initiative is being led independently by Greg Lyman. Technically, that may be true on paper. Politically, it doesn’t add up. Greg Lyman is a former mayor and longtime councilmember. He knows City Hall. He knows where pressure points are. And we are supposed to believe he is advancing a major tax measure without the full knowledge, support, and alignment of City leadership? That is not how local small-town government works. When taxes are involved, everything is coordinated.
City staff and leadership do not sit on the sidelines when millions of dollars are at stake. They provide data. They shape language. They influence framing. They identify legal pathways. They flag opportunities for flexibility. They may not appear on campaign materials, but they are deeply involved in the architecture. That is how these measures are built.
Ask yourself who benefits if this passes. Not residents struggling with rising costs. Not small businesses are facing high taxes. Not homeowners watching assessments climb. The primary beneficiary is City Hall, through increased financial flexibility. More revenue means fewer hard budget choices, less pressure to reform spending, more room for administrative expansion, and more capacity to shift costs internally.
Greg Lyman’s experience should make voters more cautious, not more comfortable. He understands the system. He understands its loopholes. That doesn’t make him dishonest. It does mean he knows exactly how flexible this measure can become once passed.
Loose language is not accidental. Broad categories are not accidental. Missing safeguards are not accidental. They are features. They are what allow future reallocations, overhead charges, and budget maneuvering while officials can still say, “We followed the rules.”
This vote is not about libraries. It is not about downtown revitalization. It is not about community investment. It is about whether residents will again accept vague promises, flexible rules, and after-the-fact explanations.
Stop being fooled. El Cerrito deserves better than magical thinking and financial gamesmanship. Voters deserve the truth, and we recommend voting NO on any new taxes until City Hall establishes a long track record of transparency, truth and a commitment to releasing the full story.
El Cerrito Committee for Responsible Government (ECCRG) 