THE EL CERRITO LIBRARY INITIATIVE — also known as Measure C — has been a source of controversy among residents. That was clear by the websites and signs for and against the initiative, which emerged in full force over the weeks leading up to election day.
Despite a hard-fought battle by many who wanted to see major improvements made to the 77-year-old facility, the tax measure is expected to fail.
As of Monday, 10,666 ballots have been tallied for Measure C — the “no” campaign received (and is leading with) 7,431 votes (69.7% of those who did cast ballots), while proponents of the measure only received 3,235 votes (30.3% of ballots cast).
Unofficial results are tracked on the county’s primary election website.
Former El Cerrito Mayor Greg Lyman, and other proponents who wanted to see an upgrade to the aging city library, introduced the funding plan to El Cerrito’s City Council in 2025. The official ordinance of the library initiative proposed the construction of a new, up-to-code library (the city’s only one) to be built by residents’ tax dollars, collected from homeowners at the maximum rate of $0.17 per square foot of their house area (or other building area they might own on their lot) annually for the 30 years following the issuance of construction bonds.
El Cerrito residents Barbara Chan and Wally Nowinski led the opposition to the tax.
“I think there is a really interesting contrast between the campaign that we ran and the campaign that the “yes” campaign ran,” Nowinski said. “The ‘yes’ campaign focused on getting endorsements and keeping it simple. ‘Libraries are good,’ ‘people like libraries,’ and almost every single elected official up and down from state senator down to former city council folks were endorsing it. And our message was we’re actually going to talk to our neighbors and see what they think. And the power of individual one-on-one conversations with your neighbors are worth more than any endorsement.”
Measure met with skepticism
Despite the general censure of Measure C, opposing residents weren’t so much against the idea of a new library as they were of this specific plan and the city’s past fiscal mismanagement.
“We voted to raise taxes a few years ago for the library, and so for me, I don’t understand why that didn’t do it,” El Cerrito resident Gal Gressel said. “I don’t know if this is going to do it.”
Mark and Alena Andress claimed maladministration by El Cerrito, as well.
“I feel there’s a lot of financial mismanagement. I think they should really get their house in order and be able to manage with the amount of money they get coming in from property taxes and so on,” Mark Andress said. “It’s just a case of managing the budget a bit better, and they’re not doing that.”
However, Lyman recalled that the ordinance was written and advocated for without any feedback from those who would later form the opposition.
“The challenge was that there was no opposition at the time that we were writing the ballot measure,” Lyman said. “We, [the proponents of the measure], were all well known. We were at the City Council meetings and advocating for it. No one reached out to us to say, ‘hey, we think this is a great idea, let’s modify it in this way.’
“We voted to raise taxes a few years ago for the library, and so for me, I don’t understand why that didn’t do it.”
Gal Gressel, El Cerrito resident
As part of the opposition’s campaign, a key slogan on their website reads “libraries are good, the library tax is not.” Lyman points to this in hopes that a new plan may emerge from the opposition. This is especially pertinent, given that the current library is too small for the city, not up to seismic code, has no air conditioning, and is not fully ADA compliant according to both El Cerrito Library Community Needs Assessments from 2006 and 2014.
“People that opposed this ballot measure will obviously need to step forward,” Lyman said. “They said they were in support of a library, just not this measure, so we will await them stepping forward with their proposal.”
‘Back to the drawing board’
Chan, however, emphasized what she said is the key focus of the opposition’s campaign.
“As for our campaign, we were focused on educating people on the impact of Measure C and stopping it, so then the city would be forced to go back to the drawing board with the input of the citizens of El Cerrito instead of it being a top-down difficulty,” she said.
In spite of this, Lyman said extensive community involvement in the “yes” campaign helped soften the blow from the loss.
“All the people we met who stepped up to volunteer are all greatly appreciated,” said Lyman, also a former El Cerrito City Council member. “They put in their time, and they worked hard, and I met a lot of new people that I wouldn’t have met any other way. Despite the outcome, it was definitely a great opportunity to meet a lot of people who care about El Cerrito.”
Christopher Laursen-Bailey is a 10th grader at El Cerrito High School in El Cerrito and a CCYJ reporter. This story originally appeared in CCSpin.