Author Archives: eccrg

El Cerrito spends a remarkable amount of time celebrating things that would happen whether the City Council proclaimed them or not. Every year we see proclamations, recognition months, awareness campaigns, ceremonial presentations, and symbolic gestures. Pride Month. African American History Month. Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Women’s History Month. Environmental awareness events. CulturalContinue reading “El Cerrito Needs More Substance and Less Symbolism”

The most important fact in this entire discussion is also the simplest. The grant that El Cerrito received did not fund Richmond Street bike lanes. A concerned El Cerrito citizen reviewed the actual Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Round 8 grant agreement associated with the El Cerrito Plaza Transit-Oriented Development project. The grant specificallyContinue reading “The Grant Was Awarded for East-West Bike Lanes — Not Richmond Street”

The results of Measure C send a clear message from the residents of El Cerrito: enough is enough. For years, four out of five members of the City Council publicly supported a plan to place a new library at the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) site near BART. They endorsed a financing strategy that would have allowedContinue reading “The Voters Have Spoken: It’s Time for a Change in El Cerrito”

Inspired by a concerned citizen Measure C needed 50% of the vote to pass. Instead, it currently has about 28%. Voters did not narrowly reject the measure. They overwhelmingly rejected it. That makes one question impossible to ignore: Who should pay for the $80,000 special election? The City of El Cerrito chose to place MeasureContinue reading “$80,000 Later, Measure C Is Losing by 72%”

The latest election results reveal something remarkable. Measure C currently has approximately 1,550 “Yes” votes, a number that appears to be significantly lower than the more than 2,000 signatures gathered to qualify the measure as a citizen initiative. That fact alone should give city leaders pause. Residents were told that Measure C was a grassrootsContinue reading “Measure C and the Cost of Losing Public Trust”

What makes this election particularly noteworthy is that it may be the first time in recent El Cerrito history that a major City-backed ballot measure has faced organized and effective opposition. For months, supporters of Measure C characterized opponents as anti-library, accused residents of spreading misinformation, and in some cases described critics as bullies. SomeContinue reading “More Than a Tax Measure”

There’s a difference between being a compelling voice and being capable of governing. In El Cerrito, the stakes are too high to blur that line. The city doesn’t run on slogans or mailers. It runs on budgets, contracts, policies, and performance data. And all of that requires functional literacy in a very real, practical sense.Continue reading “Functional Literacy Is a Governance Issue in El Cerrito”

Influenced By a Concerned Citizen Most residents voting on Measure C likely believe they are voting for a straightforward library project. But the reality appears far more complicated. The proposed El Cerrito Plaza library concept is deeply connected to a larger transit-oriented affordable housing development planned for the BART parking lot. And that broader projectContinue reading “The Plaza Library Project Just Got a Lot More Uncertain”

Influenced by a Concerned Citizen In local government, public trust matters. Residents expect elected officials to make decisions and public endorsements based on what is best for the community, not on who recently contributed to a political campaign. That is why some residents are raising questions after reviewing recent campaign finance disclosures connected to MeasureContinue reading “How Much Does It Cost To Buy and Endorsement”

A legitimate public process is not simply a public meeting, a published agenda, or a polished budget presentation. A legitimate public process is transparent, complete, balanced, and honest about both strengths and risks. It gives residents enough information to understand not only what is being proposed, but also what is being deferred, understated, omitted, orContinue reading “A Public Process Is More Than a Presentation”

El Cerrito’s Proposed Budget Reveals a City Under Growing Structural Pressure El Cerrito’s proposed biennial budget deserves credit for one important thing: it is more candid than some prior financial discussions about the pressures the City is facing. The problem is that honesty alone does not eliminate the risks. Beneath the balanced-budget presentation is aContinue reading “Growing Structural Pressure”

But Does It Have a True Community Center or Senior Center? A concerned resident recently raised a point that deserves more thoughtful discussion than it has received so far. Much of the current civic conversation in El Cerrito has centered around building a new library. But some residents are asking a broader question: What communityContinue reading “El Cerrito Has a Library.”

Based on research by a concerned citizen For months, supporters of Measure C have suggested that El Cerrito still has flexibility — that the city could potentially rebuild the library somewhere other than the El Cerrito Plaza BART transit-oriented development site. But the public record tells a far more specific story. Internal emails, board meetingContinue reading “Why Rebuilding on Stockton Avenue Was Never Really the Plan”

El Cerrito’s fiscal challenges did not appear overnight, and they are not simply the result of inflation, Proposition 13, passed in 1978, or a temporary economic downturn. The deeper issue is structural. The way the City is governed has created conditions where spending expands easily during good years, but meaningful correction becomes politically and operationallyContinue reading “Major Governance Failure in El Cerrito”

As the debate over Measure C continues in El Cerrito, many residents are beginning to recognize that this conversation is no longer just about a library. It is about trust. It is about transparency. And it is about whether voters were given a complete and honest picture before being asked to approve a long-term taxContinue reading “It’s Legal to Lie in Campaigns. But That Doesn’t Make It Right.”

Inspired by research from an informed and concerned citizen. We keep hearing the same refrain from some local leaders and boosters: We’re not Hercules. We’re not Emeryville. That may be true geographically. But it misses the real point entirely. Those cities are not successful because of their names. They are successful because they made deliberateContinue reading “Economic Development”

There is a difference between civic engagement and political spam. Over the last several weeks, many contributors and residents opposed to Measure C have reported receiving unsolicited campaign emails from Greg Lyman’s Yes on C campaign despite never signing up for his mailing list. Several recipients say they never attended campaign events, never donated, andContinue reading “Political Spam Wrapped in Civic Language”

One of the clearest moments in the El Cerrito library debate did not involve a vote. It involved the refusal to even have one. Councilmember William Ktsanes asked the Council to consider alternatives to the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) library proposal at El Cerrito Plaza. He did not ask the Council to approve an alternative. HeContinue reading “How Silence Revealed the Plaza Library Plan Was Predetermined”

Last night’s El Cerrito City Council meeting offered residents a revealing look at the City’s ongoing structural budget challenges and rising financial pressures. Throughout the discussion, Council acknowledged growing costs and long-term fiscal strain, yet there was little meaningful discussion about reducing staffing levels, eliminating vacant positions, or restructuring operations to control expenses. That omissionContinue reading “Recap of Last Night’s El Cerrito City Council Budget Discussion”

In 2016, El Cerrito voters rejected a tax measure. What followed should have been a wake-up call for city leadership. In the years after that failed measure, El Cerrito’s financial condition deteriorated so badly that the city was identified among the small group of California cities considered most vulnerable to fiscal distress. Out of moreContinue reading “El Cerrito Has Been Here Before. Why Are We Being Asked to Trust Again?”