I’ve been trying to make sense of Measure C¹ and while following along the debate, I gathered a list of reasons why to vote yes or no. This is not supported by either side and I tried to remove the spin from both parties (I lean no currently). If you think there are more direct reasons to vote no or yes, let me know. I try not to bring up nuanced arguments, although a few slip in, hopefully they’re all in a neutral section towards the bottom. Lastly, my opinion can be safely skipped, on the bottom.

Reasons to Vote Yes

you like the Plaza location

To the left is the BART parking lot where the library/apartment combo will be built.

a larger library, the current library is around $6, 50 0_{f t^{2}}$ and the proposed library would be $20, 00 0_{f t^{2}}$
- additional space could be for isolated rooms for kids and professionals
direct access to the library via BART
trust the people involved with the project
a delay will impact the timeline and cost of the Plaza project

Reasons to Vote No

Two sections are used because financial issues might read as anti-tax, so I explicitly point them out.

Non-Financial

you don’t like the Plaza location:
- $\frac{4}{5}$ of the council members favor the Plaza project effectively making this the chosen plan
- as shown above, it will use that parking lot to build the structure
parking
- street based
- parking report is not ready and so largely unknown
Albany’s library is only a mile away from the proposed location and has parking
the project is developed in coordination with an external developer, BART, and the city increasing the complexity and risk
area has a higher rate of violent crime ²
no guaranteed outcome means it’s possible no library will exist at all (this is the point that’s most salient to me)
trust
- project lacks transparency
- the Impact Report has elementary math mistakes³ which makes all of the other determinations based on it questionable, it’s inconsistent across projects
- the city paid $$ 80, 000$ to escalate the timeline of the vote to June 2nd

Financial

it’s too expensive to operate
- the current library cost approximately $$ 150, 000$ to operate, the Plaza library is expected to be $$ 700, 000$ to $$ 800, 000$ to operate
- these costs are only covered for 10 years
the city is paying $$ 8, 000, 000 +$ to help build something it doesn’t own, it cost $$ 10, 000, 000$ to renovate the existing library
there are no pre-existing county, state, or federal grants that are leveraged
the parcel tax’s language open by design, if the project stalls, taxes can keep being collected

Neutral and Nuanced

The yes people say it will cost you around $$ 8, 600$ to $$ 10, 000$ over the timeline of the project and the no people say it will be between $$ 25, 000$ and $$ 30, 000$ . Who is right? Both are correct in different ways. The yes group seems to be optimistically calculating on a lower bound, this implies that the parcel taxes do not increase at all every year. The no group is pessimistic calculating based on maximum exposure/risk; it’s the number you get when tax increases at the maximum rate every year. While the city doesn’t account for growth projections in terms of salary increases, they also don’t account for increase in tax revenue of projected new units of housing. Either way, I’d expect better cost projections from the city generally. The parcel tax definitely offsets some of the existing financial pressure from the city’s general fund for at least 10 years but it’s unclear how it will be used.

Opinion

I lean no because the plan is too vague, lacks constraints, and does not guarantee a library. The city was not creative enough with its financing to make progress on a library, why must this now be a guaranteed burden on citizens for 30+ years? Every project I’ve been a part of without constraints has been wasteful and the flexibility being described sounds like a nice way to rephrase uncertainty. It’s possible the people driving the project are great; the lack of transparency and a solid plan calls their effort into question. I would love to see an alternative proposal, a lot of people want a library and simply talking about other city priorities feels like a scape goat tactic to different issues. If people are interested in the library it should get serious discussion, a parcel tax does make it possible to apply for grants eventually given the city’s current financial status, but how they ended up in this position to begin with is from poor management. The current plan is not great, but I concede that a plan exists whereas historically it took 10 years to get a second proposal (even though it’s like the same one) on the ballot. Our current library is not terrible, and there are a lot of other libraries within reach while we iron out details, so the need for a new library also does not feel urgent. The city cannot build reserve funding because it’s legally required to put money in emergency relief or pay down its pension for general fund surpluses. We need a better plan but we will likely still need a parcel tax.