2025

Donna Raveccho was killed at San Pablo and Waldo. This is the only place in the archive where the death is named, and it is named by a resident announcing a vigil — not reported by staff, not agendized, and not the subject of any item. The incoming Mayor confirms it from the dais less than half an hour later: “we've had a couple of deaths recently.” The same speaker describes four businesses on the corridor damaged by vehicles, one of which “had to delay its opening by more than a year”.

A councilmember notes that the transportation impact fee produced one payment in a year — after the Council exempted four projects under Project Kickstart in September and cut the fee 13% in October — and objects to “one-off exemptions.” In September staff had said the fee “is a part of growing our capital fund,” so waiving it means depending further on external grants. The reorganization brings a sitting state Attorney General to administer the oath, and the head of the League of California Cities saying this is her “second visit to your city in the span of about 4 or 5 months” and, in jest, “I think I've been here more than I've been in any other city.”

The incoming Mayor answers what he calls “the half-truths and stuff that you see on blogs” about the library: “let the real truth come out starting in 2026.” The incoming Mayor Pro Tem's priorities include planning capital investment “more proactively” — “not just with the pool… but with parks, with capital investments for fire resiliency.” The El Cerrito High football team and cheerleaders fill the chamber. And the new Filipino American mayor notes that his former senior partner, and that partner's best friend, Los Angeles's first Black mayor, were both once barred from the building where he had just been a guest.

El Cerrito's safety policies were written in 1999, before state law required cities to show evacuation routes and assess evacuation-constrained areas. A technical appendix models evacuation clearance times of 70 to 160 minutes, which the Fire Chief says are “too big to expect any sort of feasible” outcome. A councilmember calls the analysis a “Worst case, sort of, Dark fantasy analysis” — it assumes every one of 1.8 vehicles per household evacuates simultaneously, labels that conservative, and counts vehicles rather than the residents who have none. Adoption proceeds with the appendix unamended, on her motion. A resident, reading a statement for another, notes that not one of El Cerrito's public paths has a sign, and that more than half of the 25 people who died in the 1991 Oakland Hills fire “were in their cars.”

City staff present a $14 million Caltrans project covering 80% of the city's most dangerous street, to which El Cerrito contributes up to $400,000 for sidewalk and street-tree work, and which the city could shape only by working with Caltrans. The CAPM strategy “does not include road geometry changes”: Caltrans confirms that rules out lane-width changes to add bike lanes, and curb bulb-outs. Caltrans says six mid-block crossings on the corridor carrying the city's fatalities are in a future project it plans for 2028 but has no allocations for yet; when a councilmember sums up that it “could be 10 years, because we just don't know,” the state traffic safety chief answers “Yeah.” Councilmember Saltzman repeats her 18 November warning — that repaving without safety improvements “will just make drivers go faster” — directly to the agency that controls the road.

The Measure C arguments arrive fully formed. An opponent explains that proponents chose a citizens' initiative because “the threshold to pass is only 50% plus one vote,” while a city-placed measure “would require 67% to pass”. An opponent states that “research paid for by El Cerrito taxpayers has twice shown that there isn't 67%,” which is not addressed at this meeting; Measure C fails in June at roughly 30%. And Betty Buginis, preparing a Historical Society panel on journalism, ties the dispute to the loss of local news: “if we had the kind of newspaper coverage we once had, we would know the actual cost of this project.” Garbage rates rise 11% on a regional processing contract; 96% of city accounts use the two smallest cart sizes.

Two collisions in four days, both after dark, then a third in daylight that was life-threatening. Both pedestrian collisions, one after dark and one in daylight, involved drivers who said they did not see the pedestrian until impact; the third crash was a drunk driver who rear-ended an occupied car, and the Chief's message is about driver awareness. “Caltrans is the primary agency that has responsibility and ownership of that road”: Changes to the roadway run through Caltrans, which the Chief says is “sometimes challenging to work with”; the city's role is to advocate, and the sidewalk is in the city's right of way. Councilmember Saltzman warns that “the scariest thing is if they repave with no safety improvements, it will just make drivers go faster because when there's smooth pavement, you end up driving faster.”

A resident identifies the Local Road Safety Plan the city commissioned, surveyed residents for, and had not published — in the same week as the three collisions. It finally arrives in April 2026. She also asks for a Vision Zero policy; on 2 December Saltzman says staff will bring one to the Council next year. Asked by a councilmember who says residents keep asking, staff confirm the reserve layers: 13% emergency plus 17% unrestricted equals the 30% policy. Prepaying the pension liability for a 3.5% discount is disclosed in answer to a question.

The chambers rebuild is awarded at $348,940 through an informal selection rather than a formal bid, justified by “the potential for additional system failures and increasing costs for equipment” — about 45 minutes after the meeting's own Zoom audio failed and was fixed by rebooting a computer. The Clerk refers back to her 21 October presentation on the equipment's condition. The Clerk says the contract “will also help us in determining how we will comply” with SB 707, “because we will then have the infrastructure in place.” She also connects the new design to a complaint made forty minutes earlier, that the room's layout blocks sight lines and puts speakers' backs to the public. A separate exchange establishes that projected reserve balances exclude commitments the Council has directed but not appropriated.

Staff acknowledge a mismatch in the climate action plan: “consumption-based emissions dwarfs what municipal operations generates,” yet “the CAP strategies and actions are mainly focused on municipal operations.” The city's climate dashboard was built by the CivicSpark fellow, who is leaving for graduate school, and staff say the work proceeds “without devoted staff.” Asked how progress toward carbon neutrality will be measured, staff say “I will have to follow up on that one” and that measurement “would come in an update of the Climate Action Plan.”

The childcare appeal ran about an hour and a half and was built on a premise zoning cannot weigh: competition. Nine providers operate nearby, many of them home-based, and a councilmember grants the appellants' concern: “it is challenging for daycare providers now,” with universal TK and preschool serving “all children over the age of 4, and many three and a half year olds.” But “none of the findings consider the proximity of similar existing businesses,” and a family daycare home in the same building, licensed by the state for up to 14 children, would need no permit at all, because “cities are not permitted to place land use regulations on family daycare homes.” Traffic is the neighbor argument the zoning findings do permit: an appellant says the intersection has eight times the state average of accidents per mile.

Three different capacity figures surfaced — 25 requested, 20 from state licensing, 18 in the conditions — and the binding number came from the applicant's own offer at the Planning Commission. A published typo stating the appeal window as ten working days when the code says ten calendar days, raised by a neighbor in public comment, was confirmed by staff when a councilmember asked them to address his concerns. The outcome is a compromise built in real time: the operator gets a conditional path to growth, neighbors get a year of operating history first. Elsewhere, over 40 vacancies across the city's boards and committees are reported, and the volunteer paths program reports 125 festival attendees, a volunteer who is “building their trails right now” for the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, and a formal agreement in progress.

The city's lobbyist reports drafts, poised to go into SB 423 in the last days of the session, that would have postponed or eliminated real estate transfer taxes for fifteen years — “a critical revenue source for the city of El Cerrito”; what reached print applied only to Los Angeles. Only 23 California cities levy one — but, the lobbyist says, they cover “nearly 12 million Californians,” so taking it away is not “going to be incredibly easy.” Of local taxes and fees, he says, “it is open season.” A councilmember asks what happens when two client cities disagree. The disclosed remedy is an internal firewall, then a subcontracted outside advocate.

The Transit Oriented Communities policy conditions future OBAG grant eligibility — a source that has brought the city almost $10 million to date — on density standards set by MTC. Staff explain that the standard is an average minimum density of 75 units per acre, not a cap: Credence, 32 condominium units at San Pablo and Eureka, is 56 units per acre and would fall below it. The timing did not line up: MTC adopted the policy in 2022 while the housing element was in development, the element was adopted in August 2023, guidance followed in September 2024, and the scoring criteria are still “in development.” One land use planner, one transportation planner and one affordable housing program manager, overseen by the Planning Manager and the Community Development Director, are implementing all of it.

The Council takes the pool, a fire engine and the chambers AV system in one discussion, because the City Manager will not bring the renovations budget “in a vacuum.” The AV system is original to 2007 and its main components can no longer be replaced: if the remaining control panel fails, meetings would be “reduced to in-person meetings only.” The fire engine is added to the agenda mid-meeting under a Brown Act after-the-agenda finding to beat a price expiry worth roughly $240,000. Two months earlier the Financial Advisory Board had proposed a maintenance fund for long-lived assets, using a fire truck as its example.

AB 130, passed inside a budget bill, bars cities from making residential building codes more restrictive than the state's for six years; commercial codes are not affected. The routine triennial adoption lets the city re-adopt amendments in effect before 30 September 2025; new local amendments to residential codes are barred for six years except under about half a dozen exceptions. The City Attorney describes an exception for amendments needed to carry out general plan policies; the city adopts a new Safety Element eight weeks later. Councilmember Motoyama raises a county requirement for automatic gas shutoff at point of sale, which she understands “would not constitute an amendment here”; the City Manager has already discussed it with the Community Development Director and the Fire Chief as something to explore.

Two residents of the same intersection, speaking one speaker apart, both object to the treatment: red curb and delineators at a spot the city “deemed an unmarked crosswalk” and one of them says has “quite clearly no crosswalk.” Both want a real crosswalk. Both say they learned of the change after the design stage: “I was not notified during that phase.” Staff explain why the Del Norte project ran long: a constructability review reads the plans, and “sometimes there's buried pipes that were abandoned and weren't, properly documented.” The Public Works Director acknowledges that “the public just sees a bunch of debris and delays” while the underground work — storm drains, conduit and signal foundations — is finished.

A couple of almost forty years' residence ask for a senior center, the husband translating for his wife, having used a senior center until “a few years ago.” The fire department reports a cardiac arrest patient who survived with intact brain function and “showed up at the firehouse two days later.” San Pablo Avenue bus lanes scored highest of every transit project in Contra Costa County, six weeks before the Police Chief reports three serious collisions on San Pablo Avenue in eight days, two of them pedestrians struck in crosswalks. And the Council marks the death of Belva Davis, the first Black woman television reporter on the West Coast, an El Cerrito resident memorialized locally by a painted utility box.

The Financial Advisory Board recommends a maintenance fund that sets money aside for long-lived assets over their useful life — illustrated by a $1.1 million fire truck with an 11-year life, “$100,000 a year” — plus a separate 2% set-aside for one-time expenses. The fund already exists in the city's accounting — it simply has no money in it. The board's vice chair argues for budgeting ahead “rather than be surprised every time these one-time expenses come up”; the Mayor answers that “we're still cutting services, it's just that we're cutting it in advance,” and the board replies that “the goal is not to cut services.” The board leaves with no motion, no vote and no direction, and both recommendations are nevertheless acted on in part. Two months later the Council amends its agenda mid-meeting to buy a $1.6 million fire engine before a price expires.

The swim center item shows how a plaster bubble became a capital project. Replastering alone is maintenance and triggers nothing; touching the deck or the parking lot makes it capital and pulls in required ADA and stormwater work, and with optional EV charging and the water slide moves the cost from $970,000 to $2.3 million and then to $4.7 million. Staff say that of the full scope, “the only optional things are the EV charging and the water slide” — everything else follows automatically from replacing the pool's ADA lift. Staff acknowledge, and a councilmember stresses, that the parking lot ADA work has already been put off “twice in the past decade.”

Councilmember Saltzman: “I feel like we're being really jammed here” — the cost had risen $1.1 million between June and August on a project scoped in March. The Finance Director says the Council “has been extremely clear with me and with our team for the last 5 years” about not going below 17%, while the target was formally a goal. The Council's own rules of order are read aloud to settle which of two motions is voted first; the bare Option 2 motion fails, and the motion with a two-month return passes with only the Mayor Pro Tem voting no. A resident corrects an error in the cash report, to the penny, and the Finance Director accepts it minutes later.

The meeting at which the Council leaves the Richmond Street design in place by taking no action to change it. Staff confirm that the 2016 plan called for a shared lane north of Moeser, that speed and volume data now point to “a bike lane or a separated bike lane,” and that the chosen design is a bike lane with parking alternating between sides. Councilmember Ktsanes brings a four-part motion — drafted to reject nothing and choose nothing, only to have staff evaluate alternatives — and it dies for lack of a second. The Mayor then asks for any motion to amend and gets none: “Going once. Going twice.”

Forty-three requests to speak are heard in under an hour at one minute each, and the split does not run where the rhetoric says it does — residents of the street appear on both sides. Two women hit by cars on Richmond Street reach opposite conclusions about the design. One empirical objection, sixty bike crashes in twelve years and none on Richmond, is met with the argument that “we should not wait for collisions to happen”; a two-week trial with temporary signage goes unaddressed.

Earlier the Council confirms $41,583.81 in abatement costs against a family home where ten and a half tons of debris were removed — after the owner's daughter describes an 84-year-old bedridden mother, a disabled sister, and an arrangement under which “the city allowed the fire department to clean up our property every year,” saying “promises have been broken.” Asked what options the Council has, the City Attorney names a gentler alternative — “It could just be a lien on the property which would have to be cleared at the time of sale” — and no motion is made for it. Mayor Wysinger closes the Council discussion with a long statement on residents using the vocabulary of social justice to argue about parking.

A pension consultant sets out the city’s $89 million unfunded liability — $253 million of obligation against $164 million of assets, amortized at 6.8% interest, in thirty to forty separate layers. A discount rate cut from 6.8 to 6.5 would push it toward $94 million. Asked whether a “fresh start” would shield the city from future variance, the answer is no: it levels the curve, locks you in permanently, and “you really can never protect against what will happen in the future.”

The first annual vacancy hearing under AB 2561 reports a 10% average rate and 67 calendar days to fill a position — against 47.5 days a year later. A firefighter raises a succession risk, not raised again at the following year's hearing: nine captain paramedics, “a lot of” whom will be retired “in about five maybe 10 years.” SEIU’s chapter president reports building department vacancies — permit technicians and inspectors — “currently… contracted out”; a year later the same positions are still vacant.

Councilmember Ktsanes moves to bring a Financial Advisory Board recommendation forward for discussion, arguing advisory bodies find their work “received and filed and ignored.” The motion dies for lack of a second; a colleague makes the same motion four weeks later and it carries. The Council then settles $1 million of one-time spending plus a $1.5 million transfer from an overfunded disaster fund to the pension trust — after establishing that the pool is “500 or 3.4” with nothing in between.

The City Manager announces that the city has commissioned McGuire Research and Godby Research to survey local issues — the poll reporting 61% for a library parcel tax four weeks later, short of the two-thirds a council-placed measure needs. A board member separately reconstructs the funding history of the fire department’s breathing apparatus from published documents: last replaced in 2013, all 36 units through a regional FEMA grant with El Cerrito paying “the other 20%,” with the next cycle not yet open.

The military equipment ordinance is renewed unanimously with three additional drones. The chief explains that only specialized weapons must be listed, so the more widely a weapon is issued the less likely it appears on the inventory; that the rumored “tank” is a Ford Transit van with a desk and a generator; and, asked what assurance there is that drones will not help ICE, that cooperation would trigger a mandatory public meeting and “we have not held one of those public meetings yet, because we haven’t done it yet.” Pressed, he says he believes federal immigration agents have been in town “at least one time” and “I don't know the circumstances of it.”

Councilmember Motoyama recuses from the Parcel C East predevelopment loan and the grant application that follows — discussion and vote — “out of an abundance of caution” over a client relationship at her former employer, which she says “has no financial relationship to the project.” Staff disclose the Housing Assets Fund will have about $100,000 left afterward: “it is the last of the redevelopment funding.” The AHSC application that follows puts Richmond Street among four projects competing for an award of $10–50 million, implementable by December 2030.

The City Manager opens by disclosing that the city is investigating a network security incident — law enforcement notified, the state cybersecurity center assisting, no evidence that personal data was compromised, and “we dodged a bullet” offered while the investigation was still open. Six Richmond Street speakers follow, including a claim of no bicycle accidents on the street “going back to at least 2013,” an aging-in-place argument about night-time parking, a displacement argument from a lifelong cyclist, and a proposal that the vote be restricted to people who live on the street.

Councilmember Ktsanes asks that minutes record the fiscal outcome of a decision and not only the action — an appropriation increase he opposed produced “nearly a million dollar deficit” that the record does not show. The clerk explains action-minute practice. The Council then declares 6327 Conlon Avenue a public nuisance and grants budget authority not to exceed $35,000; the itemized cost returns on 15 July at $41,583.81.

The budget study session presents $4.1 million of one-time needs against $2.2 million of discretionary fund balance, with the forecast explicitly excluding a recession. Ktsanes puts unfunded pension liabilities at about $100 million and calls the Section 115 trust “about 1% of what’s owed”; Motoyama answers that the liability “is not a fixed mortgage” and asks for a deep dive, which becomes the 20 May CalPERS session. Both she and Saltzman counter the City Manager’s $2 million with $1 million. The session ends with no motion and no vote; the City Manager sums up that “the consensus is coming back with a million dollar figure.”

County Library Commissioner Michael Fischer reports that the President has announced an intent to abolish the Institute of Museum and Library Services — “the only federal agency that’s involved in funding for libraries” — with staff already drastically reduced, and asks the Council to pass a resolution, offering to draft it. No later meeting takes up the resolution. He and alternate commissioner Bethany Woods also set out the county’s records policy: a loan is recorded only “until that item is returned,” after which no record is kept of who borrowed it.

A newly seated LGBTQ-majority council, just on the front page of the Chronicle under the headline “El Cerrito Plants Flag for Inclusivity,” hears how the library's LGBTQ+ collection came to be: a bequest from a Kensington couple, a dedication funded by the Library Foundation, and a non-binary child who said it was the first time they had felt part of the community. The Mayor notes she has been told the council should be “less gay.” Eight public speakers include Janet Byron citing federal accessibility guidelines against the blue-curb objection, a letter about a child forced off the road on Norvell Street, and a proposal for a library in the vacant JOANN store.

The city adopts its first legislative platform over dissent. Councilmember Saltzman objects clause by clause — four statements that she says capture things “a majority of this council might not support or might not oppose” — and Councilmember Ktsanes argues that the few advocacy letters expected, “less than 10 or so,” could come back to the Council, perhaps on consent, rather than being delegated. Motoyama and Quinto support it, Quinto citing “one party rule” in Sacramento. The consultant notes that 2,600 measures have been introduced since February, and that “concerns” and “support if amended” are not recognized legislative positions.

The Mayor moves her National League of Cities report forward so residents will hear it. A federal official presenting to the Public Safety Committee kept referring to people as “aliens” after being asked to stop, could not say what happens to cities that decline to cooperate, and then said there “may be repercussions.” She describes seeing “general angst” on her own congressman’s face over news that was “not positive,” and warns that people will lose housing, roads and funding for the Hillside Natural Area. Mayor Pro Tem Quinto advises refugees and people without green cards not to fly outside the country and to get an immigration attorney, and reports agents detaining people waiting in line at the DMV.

The Council winds up the pension board the city created in 1947. The plan was superseded by CalPERS from 1958, but retirees kept drawing benefits until, as of May 2023, there were none left. State law enacted after the plan was established bars dissolving it without voter approval — so the fund stays on the books as an empty shell while the board, and the obligation to hire an actuary and audit it annually, are removed. The item passes without a question.

The NPDES parcel assessment is levied at $38 per equivalent runoff unit, set in fiscal 2004-05 and, staff disclose, the maximum permitted. It raises $421,500, of which about $332,000 is for El Cerrito’s own compliance work and about $90,000 for regional programs, while a new permit withdraws credit for source control policies and drops the city below its trash reduction target. A 2012 countywide measure to raise the rate passed among El Cerrito residents and failed on two-thirds. Separately: the storm drain bonds were retired in 2014 and the revenue could be re-bonded; a full General Plan update “could be half a million to a million dollars,” and Councilmember Saltzman warns that piecemeal updating risks a “Frankenstein document.”

Barbara Chan objects to the Plaza library plan — the city already owns Stockton, renovation was priced at $200 a square foot by the project architects, and residents were never asked which option they wanted. “A lot of people don’t want a forever tax.” A second speaker proposes the vacant Borders and JOANN units for both a library and a senior center. Six other residents then ask the Council to fund a construction management firm, several noting it would serve either site, and Laura Monroe cites a library study, updated about ten years earlier, that calls for 20,000 square feet.

The Financial Advisory Board work plan is pulled from consent. Councilmember Motoyama says it is more than the board could do in a year and names what she wants instead — an updated citywide financial policy and actionable recommendations. Chair Kimberly White answers that every item is work staff do anyway. The City Manager sets out the structure: “they don’t work for us, they work for you,” staff are not directed by advisory bodies, and the board’s request to see documents before the Council would require changing the ordinance. Councilmember Ktsanes recounts being told by a former finance director, “you are not to look into the weeds,” after which the monthly financials became quarterly and then stopped.

The mid-year budget update seeks $443,000 in appropriation authority, offset by $310,535, for a net $132,465 use of fund balance — including $75,000 of urgent interim repairs to a stormwater dissipator required by a 2024 settlement arising from a 2016 landslide. The forecast shows a roughly $0.7 million ongoing correction needed from the next biennial cycle. Ktsanes votes no, arguing mid-year additions should be offset rather than added: “if you want A, maybe you have less B.” Staff explain why the appropriation and fund-balance figures differ — “the council doesn’t legally adopt revenues.”

Ethan Kim gives the provenance of the 90% figure: a Richmond Street Neighbors Association survey of 205 households, 90% opposed, 6.5% in favor. Elaine Fielding asks whether ADA experts were consulted and are signing off; no answer is given at this meeting. And Kathy Baca argues the access case through Janet Abelson, whom she met commuting on BART forty years ago because BART was accessible: accommodations designed in from the start are a different thing from accommodations supplied on request.

The Council establishes a utility underground district so Richmond’s Rule 20A credits can pay for undergrounding inside El Cerrito’s boundary, part of an interchange project first funded in 2004. Councilmember Ktsanes separately asks that vehicle purchases disclose their full cost — he had watched a police car approval from the audience, thought $50,000 implausible, in 2024, and got his answer months later from a separate $80,000 outfitting line. Staff agree.

At the legislative platform study session the consultant discloses that 5,564 bills were introduced last session, about 2,600 touching local government — and that his busiest city clients take positions on 20 to 30 a year. Councilmember Saltzman objects clause by clause to language she says could commit the city either way, and describes the BART model: an annual program, then batches of bills, sometimes ten at once, often approved without discussion. Ktsanes agrees and proposes consent items. The City Manager answers from the staff side: “I don't even know who would write the staff report.”

The Mayor reads a formal statement in light of “federal immigration enforcement activities beginning to occur here in Contra Costa County” On 6 May the police chief, asked whether ICE had come to town, says “I believe they” have. The city “will not expend funds nor use its resources, including staff,” and will watch for funding retaliation. A resident offers three concrete responses — know-your-rights material in several languages to high school seniors, volunteer lawyers, and a rapid response witness network.

A3 Contra Costa presents the county behavioral health crisis service created after Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man, was killed by law enforcement during a mental health crisis. In 2024: 20,173 calls, 3,764 field dispatches, 1,089 requests from law enforcement, a 15-second answer time, and a councilmember, reading the public dashboard, reports 103 calls from El Cerrito from people who were stably housed. Separately, the police department’s professional staff award goes to a records specialist whom detectives relied on to contact a Spanish-speaking fatal hit-and-run suspect, question him and “convince him to surrender at the police department.”

The second quarter update sets out, for the first time as an explicit calculation, how much of the fund balance is discretionary: a $22.8 million fund balance, less a projected deficit of about $960,000, less the EDRF, the 115 trust and non-spendable amounts, leaves $11.4 million unrestricted, and holding a 17% reserve of about $9.1 million leaves $2.2 million. In the annual audit, Councilmember Motoyama’s line-by-line questions turn up an error on page 85, an unexplained “Richmond retirement” line the finance director cannot identify, and an insurance increase expected to be “most likely significantly” higher, with the estimate due with the June budget. The meeting adjourns in memory of Reverend Phil Lawson, the first Black pastor of the El Cerrito United Methodist Church, who was “responsible for resettling thousands of Central American refugees.”

Fifteen members of the public signed up to speak open the meeting. Shelby Hogan gives the petition’s method in full — door to door, 25% not at home, 141 signatures, 90% of those who answered, 6.5% in favor — about 205 homes were approached, so 141 is about 69% of them. Ted Devon notes the city “did not provide the numbers of bikers using Richmond Street”; Kathy Baca argues accessibility cannot be sited by knowing who currently needs it; Ethan Kim describes delivery vehicles with nowhere legal to stop; and Ruth Amernick calls publicly for Councilmember Saltzman to recuse over her employment at Bike East Bay.

Patricia Durham is inducted into the Wall of Fame. The police chief, Supervisor Gioia, two former mayors, her pastor, her sisters and her daughter speak. Her sister Michelle Jackson places it: “we knew we had to participate, but we never thought we would be on the wall.” Also in public comment: Make El Cerrito Fire Safe on Zone Zero around the city’s own buildings and a hydrant pressure question he says has not yet been answered; Jim Dalgonis explaining AB 38 and the sewer lateral analogy; and 350 Contra Costa arriving with the number of a county electrification ordinance it says does “not run counter to the court's ruling.”

The county library commissioners report that Contra Costa funds its libraries at nearly half the per-person level of comparable counties, almost entirely from a fixed slice of property tax. El Cerrito funds 6 extra hours above the county's 40 — and its 46 hours are “the maximum that can be provided for at our small little library,” capped by the physical size of the building. A countywide 1/8-cent library sales tax is floated, and Councilmember Saltzman asks that it not conflict with the city’s own library measure, and whether many cities are already at the maximum sales tax. The auditor reports an unmodified opinion on a year that went from a projected $93,178 surplus to an amended $6.31 million deficit to a $250,147 actual one.