Yes to Library Tax

Some want a library to be part of a future affordable housing building at Fairmount Avenue and Liberty Street.

OPINION by Greg Lyman

I want to continue being proud of my community. I want El Cerrito to be a place where people want to live. That means we need to reinvest in our community. Reinvest, because 60 to 75 years ago, residents decided to tax themselves to build a library, a public safety building to house police and fire, a senior center, a community center, a theater and a public works office building. In the last 30 years we built a new firehouse, a new City Hall, and a few recreation facilities.

We need to reinvest in our community, in our El Cerrito, to make it a better place to live, and a brighter gem in the Bay Area.

Let’s start with the library. Why?

• It is the oldest of our public buildings at 75 years old.

• It is the most used and wanted by the public.

• It is way too small.

• It is outdated for today’s space and technology needs.

• It is seismically unfit.

• And it makes the most sense fiscally.

We deserve and need a new modern library. A modern library would have more computers for educational games, spaces for teens to study after school, quiet areas for comfortable reading, meeting spaces for collaboration and a large space for lectures and community dialogue.

Don’t judge a library by its circulation or its collection. Judge a library by how it inspires learners of all ages, from seniors down to our youngest toddlers. Judge it by its spaces for study, to hear books being read aloud, to gather for events, to allow future Nobel prize winners space to invent and create. We need a library that is large enough to be open more hours and with spaces to offer more programs. We deserve a library that will open minds and hearts to learning about what is beyond El Cerrito.

The longer we wait to start El Cerrito’s rejuvenation, the more it will cost. Now there is a clear opportunity for a new, larger, modern library, with construction breaking ground in 2027 and doors opening before 2030. We, the people of El Cerrito, need the financial resources to seize this opportunity before it disappears, and before the cost of a new larger, modern library increases because of delays and the need to buy land.

In the coming weeks you are likely to be approached by one of our hundreds of volunteers collecting signatures to allow voters to decide, democratically, in a future election whether or not to invest in a new library and El Cerrito’s future. The proposed funding measure creates the financial resources for us to decide what a new modern library can look like. The petition and proposed ballot measure gives us the power to move forward with a new modern library. Without funding, we remain stagnant, as we have for the past 20 years. Sign a petition so we can start to move forward.

Every decision has consequences. You can choose not to sign a petition and you can choose to vote no once it is available for a democratic decision. Those choices delay a brighter future and only increase the cost. We hope you choose to VOTE YES, for a modern library.

For now, please find a volunteer and sign a petition and start reinvesting in El Cerrito’s future, figuratively and literally. Vote YES when this funding measure is on the ballot and start El Cerrito’s rebirth as a community of which we can all proud be of. Join the Committee for a Plaza Station Library and start rebuilding El Cerrito with a new modern library.

Greg Lyman is a former El Cerrito mayor and council member and the treasurer of the Committee for a Plaza Station Library. (www.c4psl.org)