Lovable El Cerrito
A blog about discovering the state of politics in El Cerrito, CA in the year 2026.
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Fire Safety
I don’t know how it was for you, but my feelings about climate change have undergone a notable shift over the last few years. My parents raised me and my siblings to hold strong social progressive Catholic environmentalist convictions (although most of the Catholic dogma didn’t really stick), so belief in the science of climate…
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Public Safety
Asking my neighbors about what issues they care about here in El Cerrito, I have been a little bit surprised to hear a frequent theme: A decent number put “safety” at the top of their list. Safety is a big topic. It can mean many different things, not all of which are obvious. I think…
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Pension Liabilities
My final post in this series on El Cerrito’s fiscal governance history is about everyone’s favorite topic, pension liabilities. After this, I’m going to spend some time looking towards the future, because honestly I’m a little tired of the past decade and I’d like to think about something more aspirational for a minute. But I…
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The Balanced Budget
A confession: I’m letting myself get sucked into Nextdoor arguments again. I know it’s not necessarily the most productive use of my time, but I sometimes I can’t resist. It reminds me of this classic xkcd comic, Duty Calls. I want to share a (relatively) quick note on budgeting, reflecting on some of the back-and-forth…
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City Council
Shortly after I started paying attention to City Hall, I realized that it’s important to understand the nuts and bolts of how our government works, especially if you wish to have a hand in influencing its direction. If you’re not aware, El Cerrito’s city management structure is set up with separation between council and staff,…
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Lovable El Cerrito
It’s probably time for me to talk a bit about how this blog came to exist. I was chatting with neighbors, and one of them told me of her bewilderment about how divisive the discourse about the city had become. “Looking around,” she said, “All I can think is how nice a place El Cerrito…
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The State Audit Days
It’s a little tricky to talk about the period of economic crisis that El Cerrito recently went through, because it doesn’t exactly have an agreed-upon name. I started out thinking “The Financial Crisis of Circa 2019” because that’s the year when a lot of things seem to have come to light, but that kind of…
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City Staff and Salaries
A common refrain of certain folks who raise concerns about El Cerrito’s financial health is that we have city staffing and salary “bloat.” And it’s true, staffing is by far the largest part of our budget—particularly fire and police. But how does one determine what level of staffing is “appropriate” for a given city, and…
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Trust and Accountability
The other day, I sent an email to City Clerk Holly Charléty with a simple question: how much does it cost the city to respond to public records act (PRA) requests? She responded right away that she unfortunately cannot give a quantitative answer to that question, because city staff does not track their time at…
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State of City Finances
The financial situation of our city is one of the major hot topics in El Cerrito politics, so I figure it makes sense to start there. A lot of my initial impressions—particularly from reading the ECCRG blog—suggested a city in financial shambles, and indeed, there was undeniably a low point our recent history. But before…