Opinion: What El Cerrito Really Needs

 

Image: The Public Safety building that needs replacing, the Senior Center that closed and was never replaced, and the Community Center that needs repair

Update: El Cerrito voters overwhelmingly reject Measure C

Update/Opinion: Moratorium on BART library needed

Update/Opinion: Listen to Ktsanes

By Betty Buginas

With ballots due June 2, I want to recap what I’ve written about Measure C, which leads to the strongest reason to vote no: It’s insane to commit to pay a huge tax 30 plus years into the future that can only be spent on one need.  El Cerrito has so many others - a new public safety building, a senior center, and repairs to the community center and pool (yes it needs more).

After beginning to question whether the Plaza BART station would be a good place for a library and finding out we wouldn’t own the new facility, this is the first piece I wrote in July 2025.

I was appalled when I reflected on the misinformation the city has spread, and that I had linked from the Wire.  I also wanted to respond to accusations that opponents were the ones getting facts wrong. Here is what I wrote in February.

At the Feb. 19 council meeting, the city manager said the city looked at other sites for the library as well. I wanted to know more, particularly about city-owned sites, so I put in a public records request. I discovered the city made only a minimal effort to look at city-owned property, and also doesn’t honor the public records law.

This is from May 5 after the city said it must make cuts to address a $1.7 million shortfall in 2026-27 and a $2.2 million shortfall in 2027-28, making the increased ongoing costs of having a much larger library even more alarming:

A post on Nextdoor said that the city seemed to know that the cost estimate on a Plaza library was $37 million, rather than the oft-quoted $21 million, but didn’t make it public until after the tax measure signatures were turned in. When the NextDoor moderators deleted that post, I felt it important to share here

A city official later explained to Livable El Cerrito that there was a nine-month gap between the initial date on the report and when it was released because it had to be “vetted and finalized.” 

The longer I’ve reflected on this issue, the more I feel we need to look at the library in relation to other city-owned buildings that need to be replaced or repaired. This is a huge tax that can only be spent to address one need. (This has only appeared previously on Nextdoor. I am linking it here in a Google Doc so anyone can access it. A sentence has been added about the lack of a senior center.)