El Cerrito Historical Society Meeting Summary
Sunday, April 27, 2008

The first order of business at the meeting was elections, an important item which was passed over at the January meeting. The nominating committee placed the following persons before the society for election: President: Tom Panas; Vice President: Grace MacNeill; Treasurer: Ruth Kibby; Secretary: Lucille Irish; and Director at Large: Rich Bartke. Since there were no other nominations from the membership the nominations were closed. The slate of officers presented to the membership was elected by a voice vote.

Ruth Kibby, the Treasurer of the Society, presented a financial report. The President announced that in February he had attended an excellent two-day session on historic Resources that was held in Davis by the California Preservation Foundation and he thanked the Society for sponsoring him. He also reported that the City of El Cerrito had declined the Society's offer to sponsor a Planning Department staff person and a Planning Commissioner at the conference but had independently sent two people from the Planning Department. The president reported that the tree planting in Memorial Grove for Jean Siri on February 16 th had been well-attended and he also noted that the Society had been written up in the Korean language newspaper from Oakland .

The main focus of the meeting was historic resources in El Cerrito . The President discussed the plan that the Board had formulated and which was designed move our city forward on historic resources. He also reported that the fund-raising drive announced in the recent Forge had a promising start. He then noted he and Rich Bartke had attended a meeting with the city staff the previous week, the subject of which was historic resources. At the meeting the staff dismissed out-of-hand the Society's carefully thought-out plan with no discussion whatsoever. The staff's opinion was that unless the City performs or contracts out all the work for the historic resources project that there will be significant liability for the City. The President then told the membership that given this turn of events, the Board had decided to terminate our fund-raising campaign and return the moneys collected to the donors. After this discussion the President entertained a number of questions and comments from the membership on the subject.

Before adjourning the meeting, the President pointed out some materials at the back of the room that had been sent to us by our “sister society” in Chelsea , Australia . The materials related to Chelsea 's centennial celebration and among the materials was an excellent book that the Chelsea Society had produced.