Category Archives: Uncategorized

I have been lax in posting. The last council meeting was April 20, 2021, and the State Audit report was on the agenda. First the good news Mayor Fadelli introduced the following motion which passed. He initially proposed it as 75% of the fed money to reserve and Councilperson Rudnick asked it to be 80%.Continue reading “Continued frustration with lack of movement on the budget issues”

The Town Hall supplemental materials were posted. Starting on page 37 are the chat questions that were asked during the meeting. Some were marked live answered and many were just acknowledged with no answer given. Those I am copying here. Some are comments that weren’t acknowledged and I am posting those also. I have boldedContinue reading “The questions that remain from the Town Hall meeting”

Mr. Ktsanes is a new member of the Financial Advisory Board. Some may also remember his name as he ran for City Council last year. From watching the FAB meetings it seems Mr. Ktsanes has had difficulty obtaining the financial reports he feels he needs to see to understand the city’s financial situation. I haveContinue reading “William Ktsanes speaks”

The Town Hall meeting was today. It went about the way many of us expected. The staff took up entirely too much airtime dominating the first hour of the meeting. Then they quickly jumped to we want to listen to our residents. Which in theory is a good thing. Except that a lot of residentsContinue reading “Town Hall meeting assessment….Meh”

One of the issues brought up by the CA State Auditor was that the Finance Department overrides a message their system gives them when an expenditure exceeds the budget. Here is a short video explaining the issue.

Something doesn’t add up. If you look at the Finance Director’s report for April 6th council meeting it says in item #2 “Total expenditure was $25.2 million or 67% of budget, compared with a three year average of $25.8 million.” That means our total expenditures were down $600k from the three year average. We haveContinue reading “Has the City Really Made the cuts they have said they have made?”

Councilperson Rudnick took the time to record a video on the El Cerrito financial crisis. It doesn’t address our specific questions. I do give her props for responding. Only she and Mayor Fadelli even bothered to acknowledge our request.

As promised here is his response unedited and without comment (except for the title of the post!). I do appreciate he took the time to respond. As of today he is the only person to respond. “Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your survey on El Cerrito’s fiscal situation.  And thanks also forContinue reading “Mayor Paul Fadelli responds to our questions….sort of”

Given the scathing state auditor’s report many of us had questions for council members. We compiled a list of questions and sent them to each council member asking for a response by April 1st. Thus far no responses. We are allowing them to answer with no limitations and they are allowed to add an additionContinue reading “Questions we have for the City Council”

As we all know there will a concurrent Budget Town Hall and Special City Council Meeting on April 10th at 10am. At this point we are told that the CM and Mayor will give a short presentation and then will take comments and questions from the community. Here are a list of questions that weContinue reading “What you need to know about the State Auditor’s report before the Town Hall Meeting”