Council Agrees to More Study of Charter City Option

The prospect of increasing city revenue through the types of local taxes that are currently banned in El Cerrito seemed to be the main reason the El Cerrito City Council agreed Monday night to further study of becoming a charter city.

El Cerrito now belongs to the three-fourths of California cities that are "general law" cities, which have less home-rule autonomy than those cities that draw up their own constitution, known on the local level as a charter.

Councilmember Bill Jones, who had , said he favors conversion to charter status because it offers the city greater local control, more protection from state intervention and increased ability to address local problems.

Mayor Ann Cheng said the "greatest attraction" for her would be the increased revenue but that any decision to move forward would depend on a cost-benefit analysis, weighing the disadvantages against the advantages.

City Manager Scott Hanin and City Attorney Sky Woodruff, who briefed the panel on charter city conversion, said the main revenue source employed by charter cities that general law cities can't use is a property transfer tax. A report to the council said such a tax in El Cerrito could raise about $1 million.

Councilman Greg Lyman said he would like to see increased revenue to deal with the aging library and public safety building.

Councilwoman Rebecca Benassini said she would like to explore the land-use options that chartering would provide, in addition to the financial benefits.

And Councilwoman Janet Abelson said the latitude granted to charter cities to decide a large number governance questions has led to tensions and unproductive conflict in charter cities like Berkeley and Albany, and that she was concerned that El Cerrito's strained finances could not afford the cost of studying and converting to charter status in the current weak economy.

She also said any move toward becoming a charter city needs to have protections against the kind of abuses that happened in Bell, Calif., which because a poster city for civic scandal after it utilized the freedom permitted to charter cities to pump up council salaries. City council pay in general law cities is limited by a state cap.

Conversion to a charter city can be done only by the voters in a election. It requires a simple majority to pass. Any tax measure in a charter city, as in a general law city, must be approved by the voters.

If the council wants the option of having a charter vote on the November 2012 ballot, it needs to move quickly on reaching a decision about whether to pursue it, Hanin said. He and Woodruff recommended a survey of residents as a valuable tool for assessing public sentiment.

A majority of council members indicated that they weren't prepared to spend city money on a survey yet. The panel by consensus seemed to agree that city staff would return in the near future — within six weeks — with more detail about potential revenue and cost, land-use advantages and a time-line.

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