The El Cerrito Library was built in 1948.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Dusk was gathering when Gina Brusatori and two friends piled into their Honda SUV and began snaking through the hills of El Cerrito. They planned to knock on 70 doors.
Brusatori had the script down: Ring the bell. Smile. Leave a wide berth to avoid crowding anyone’s space. Introduce yourself as a lover of books, periodicals, children, public access computers and all the warm fuzzy things associated with libraries. But not this library. Not the one they believed would cost homeowners a few hundred dollars a year in perpetuity.
Some residents spoke to the group through their screens and nodded obligingly. A few got angry and slammed doors. Clearly, this single issue had set a small city aflame, tearing apart people who used to dog-sit for one another or meet for lunch at the local Fat Apple’s.
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Susan Obayashi, Gina Brusatori and Susanne Stoffel knock on doors in an El Cerrito neighborhood for the No on Measure C campaign.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Supporters of Measure C, the parcel tax of up to 17 cents a square foot to build a new sanctuary for books, are just as frustrated.
“It’s a library, said Tess Taylor, El Cerrito’s 2024 Poet Laureate. ‘It’s not an ICE detention center.’
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The measure’s author, Greg Lyman, deemed the tax a modest ask for something that could be a great community asset.
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“You would think we were trying to open a strip mine in town,” Lyman lamented. Like Brusatori, he is a former El Cerrito mayor.
Opponents of Measure C say they are being swindled.
Chris Maack and Charles Taylor table for the Yes on Measure C campaign outside of Trader Joe’s in El Cerrito. The debate over Measure C has touched on issues of affordability, taxes and the price of Bay Area real estate.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
“If we’re going to pay all this money, we should have the Taj Mahal of libraries,” said Wally Nowinski, spokesperson for the “no” campaign. “But we know it’s going to be the Starbucks storefront of libraries.”
Every so often, a proposal as mom-and-apple pie as a new library becomes a litmus test for people’s values. There are those who consider such projects an unimpeachable civic good, and those who generally like the idea but aren’t willing to pay for it out of pocket, especially in this Bay Area real estate market. And then questions swirl about the city’s priorities, about what other tax measures will appear on the ballot, about whether every last grant has been applied for. (No grants will be available without a designated site and voter authorization, Lyman said.) Are libraries worth the investment, some wonder, in an era when everyone can stream the catalogue from their cell phones?
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El Cerrito voters are weighing Measure C on the June ballot for a parcel tax that would increase over time to construct a modern library facility, replacing the structure on Stockton Street.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
What’s strange is that El Cerrito residents are starting from a place of broad agreement: that El Cerrito’s current library, a one-story slab on Stockton Avenue, does not seem sufficient for a growing population of middle class families. Built in 1948, the structure is seismically unsafe and so cramped that it can’t accommodate much more than toddler storytimes. A larger, more modern venue could serve as a hub for film screenings and author events, a “third space” for kids to go after school and a cooling station in the worst summer heat waves. With the right amenities, it might even raise property values nearby.
But that’s where the consensus ends. When city leaders polled the library concept last year, it still seemed like a distant mirage. Developers have slotted space for a new 20,000 square foot facility on the ground floor of a massive housing complex at El Cerrito Plaza BART Station, though not everyone likes that location. Some are eyeing the plaza’s former Barnes & Noble bookstore, or various lots on San Pablo Avenue. Others insist the city could just renovate the Stockton Avenue library, a notion that perplexes Taylor, the poet laureate.
“That library is exactly like it was in the 1980s, when I was borrowing Nancy Drew and Ramona Quimby books,” she said. “Even then, I hungered for a better library. I started taking BART to libraries in other parts of the bay.”
As city planners studied their options, they realized that nothing would come cheap. Fixing up the original library would cost $10 million and require upgrades to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which would shrink down the 6,500 square-foot space. It would cost $37 million to lease land from BART and erect a much larger library at the El Cerrito Plaza station, a plan Nowinski fears might never come to fruition. A stand-alone library on San Pablo Ave. could cost anywhere from $43 to $48 million, Lyman estimates, depending on whether the city adds a parking lot.
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Any of these projects would ultimately be shouldered by taxpayers. If passed, Measure C would kick in this year and levy property taxes of about 8 cents a square foot — $100-$150 a year for the average bungalow dweller — during the planning phase. Within two or three years the city would secure a fixed-rate, 30-year bond, Lyman says, and the tax rate would rise incrementally, funding construction and ten years of operation. It would peak at 17 cents a square foot, or up to $355 on property tax bills, before receding in the final years of the bond.
Yes and No on Measure C signs are seen in El Cerrito.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Depending on your perspective, Measure C could either “reshape what downtown EL Cerrito becomes for an entire generation, or cost homeowners thousands of dollars for a library that may never get built,” real estate agent Derrick Tyler said in a video explainer, prophesying that the library tax could have a broader impact on El Cerrito’s housing market. Coupled with the new BART development, it could turn the whole area around the plaza into a vibrant commercial district, on par with Solano Avenue in Albany. Yet if homeowners want to see that vision through, they have to be willing to play the long game.
“My honest take? I like and support the idea of a new library,” Tyler said. Still, he conceded that the “no” campaign had raised legitimate questions about the tax structure. Nowinski fears the city will dither for years in the planning process before any bonds are issued, with property owners paying a tax the whole time.
Tyler’s video ricocheted through neighborhood WhatsApp groups. In the run-up to June 2, voters remained split. Because Measure C is a citizen’s initiative it only needs a majority vote to pass, yet even the proponents aren’t sure it will draw enough support.
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Charles Taylor wears a button on his hat while tabling for the Yes on Measure C campaign outside of Trader Joe’s in El Cerrito on Tuesday. Voters are weighing Measure C on the June ballot for a parcel tax that would increase over time to construct a modern library facility, likely next door to the El Cerrito Plaza BART Station.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
On Thursday evening, two organizers for the Yes on C campaign set up a card table across the street from the El Cerrito High School gym, where students were holding a choir performance. They held up signs urging people to vote on June 2 and waved at passing cars. The street was mostly quiet as wind kicked up leaves on the sidewalk.
One of the volunteers was Taylor’s father, Charles Taylor. He had been involved since the beginning, initially circulating petitions to get Measure C on the ballot, then handing out literature at farmers’ markets or on the Ohlone Greenway bike path. Once Election Day drew close, Taylor and Lyman noticed the tenor of their interactions changed. People had made up their minds, and either expressed fervent approval or open hostility. Critics of the library measure drove by and yelled through their car windows.
Members of the “no” crowd say they are getting similar treatment from the other side.
Blocks away from the high school choir concert, Brusatori and her friends were deep into door-knocking, handing out pamphlets and delivering their three-minute spiel. They found a lot of engaged listeners, including several librarians, Bruastori said proudly. They also endured lectures from people who accused them of hating havens for children and the elderly. Brusatori remained resolute. She considers herself fiscally responsible and tax skeptical, pro-library in the abstract but cognizant that her town has other infrastructural needs. She bristles at any portrayal of El Cerrito as some benighted backwater where people want to kill off a house of learning.
Canvassers for the No on Measure C campaign prepare to knock on doors in a neighborhood in El Cerrito on Tuesday.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
“In the ’60s we had more Nobel Laureates living in El Cerrito than in Berkeley,” Brusatori declared. She counted scientists and scholars degrees among the ranks of the no campaign, all of them dubious that a parcel tax would yield 20,000 square feet of bookshelves and work stations and carpeted reading areas.
Brusatori paused a beat as though collecting herself. The library debate had become personal, she and others admit. It had caused fights to erupt between neighbors and inspired friends to bludgeon one another on social media. One house in the El Cerrito hills became the talk of NextDoor because it had a “yes” and a “no” sign right next to each other in the front yard, illustrating either profound indecision, or a family at odds.
“This is,” Brusatori said wearily, “the most divisive measure I’ve ever experienced.”