Category Archives: Uncategorized

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”

I began to watch the El Cerrito City Council meeting on 3/16/21. I was focused on the presentation on the 5-year forecast. The one where City Staff seem to recommend 2 million dollars in permanent cuts starting in July. But then I saw one Council Member give the same speech they have given pretty muchContinue reading “Do You Trust El Cerrito to Make the Right Choices?”

Ah, glorious redemption. The State Auditors report on El Cerrito is out and it says everything we have been saying for over a year plus some! All links are below and I encourage people to read it. It is scathing in its criticism. Since I recognize that not all of you are as enthusiastic asContinue reading “The State Auditor Report is OUT!”

I had been hoping my next post would be on the State Auditor Report which is due on March 16, 2021. However, I just reviewed the budget materials (start on page 110 of the packet) for the Tuesday the 16th meeting and it is very very bad. The good news is that El Cerrito isContinue reading “Even with a massive Federal bailout El Cerrito is in dire straits”

So the FAB meeting happened and there was a lot to be disappointed in. Both the Chair Dick Patterson and the Finance Director were pretty clear that the purpose of the FAB is to rubber-stamp what comes from staff. FAB Member William Ktsanes has been requesting additional information from the Finance Director and not gettingContinue reading “FAB Meeting March 9, 2021”

After being a bit optimistic after the last meeting when the council directed staff to come back with 1 million dollars in cuts the meeting on February 16, 2021, was a disappointment. The City Manager came back with a scorched earth level of cuts including cuts that would devastate recreation and fire which we allContinue reading “The City Council Caves to the City Manager…again”

I will be honest. This is a very hard post to write. While I expected the City Manager to do exactly what she did with her proposed cuts reading her memo raised my blood pressure through the roof. This blog, along with many members of the public, have been asking for more cuts since SeptemberContinue reading “City Manager goes scorched earth with cuts”

The city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report was posted today. I am going to report on what stood out to me in no particular order. 1. On page 10 (all page numbers correspond to the pdf page number) it states that city management began to tackle financial issues in 2020. This made me laugh since 2017Continue reading “THE CAFR is out and it ain’t pretty”

This meeting was a study session on the budget. The packet can be found here. The Finance Director presented all the worksheets and then stated that the city needed to make cuts between the $664,000 end of the year predicted earlier versus the $303,000 currently predicted. First Councilperson Rudnick brought up the idea of cutting moreContinue reading “The Do Nothing Council is Trying to Do Something!”

The next city council meeting is next Tuesday at 7 pm (2/2/21). On the agenda (item 7A) is a mid-year budget review. The packet is found here and the budget information starts on page 12. It is my understanding that this meeting will be a study session and any actions will be at the following meeting. HereContinue reading “City Council Meeting February 2, 2021 The Mid-Year Budget Amendment”

The agenda is out for the next city council meeting. THERE IS NOTHING ON THE AGENDA ABOUT FINANCES!!!!!! I want to keep the blog family-friendly but WTF!!!!!! Seriously! They take a month off during a massive financial crisis plus pandemic and they can’t even have a new financial forecast. The last one was 12/15/2020 andContinue reading “Do Nothing City Council-Does Nothing-First meeting January 19, 2021”

It is a new year and we have a new city council. Paul Fadelli is our new Mayor. Council-People Lisa Motoyama and Tessa Rudnick have been sworn in replacing Greg Lyman and Rochelle-Pardue-Okimoto. Janet Abelson and Gabe Quinto remain on the council and will be up for election in 2022. I have been highly criticalContinue reading “What could a transparent El Cerrito look like?”

Many more people have been engaging in dialogue around the state of El Cerrito’s finances. People want to know how we got here. Here are some essential facts you may not know. Starting in 2016-17, our independent auditor warned that the city might not continue to be a “going concern,” meaning it was at riskContinue reading “10 Things you should know about El Cerrito’s financial crisis”