If it prevents a disaster, I'm willing to vote for Proposition 1A on the May 19 ballot. But I worry: Am I enabling bad behavior? Am I giving comfort to a failed system of government that won't be repaired until after it crashes and burns?

Year after year, state government cranks out one budget crisis after another. Blame ballot mandates. Blame the paralysis that follows when no budget can be enacted without two-thirds majorities in both houses. Blame poisonous partisanship. Blame special-interest politics and weak-kneed politicians.

Whatever the reason, nothing ever changes in Sacramento. When state government ought to be living with its means, streamlining the bureaucracy and reforming the tax structure, it chooses instead to kick the can down the road - deferring the hard choices that will be necessary to stop the decline into mediocrity.

No one wants to see schools and parks shuttered. No one wants to see highways and other public improvements deteriorate. No one wants to see people in need left without services.

But when will the governor and state Legislature come face-to-face with the real world? State government has to change. The old model doesn't work anymore.

To learn more about these ballot measures, check out Guy Kovner's story here and The Press Democrat Editorial Board's takes on measures 1A and 1B here and here.

Between October of 2003 and November of 2008, Californians cast ballots in nine statewide elections. Along the way, you decided 66 state ballot measures.

But the folks in Sacramento don't think you have suffered enough. Ready or not, absentee ballots for another statewide election arrive in the mail next week. While your household grapples with the worst economic conditions in 70 years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature want you to pay a little more.

As usual, this hodgepodge of ballot measures combines good intentions, confusion, borrowing and financial gimmickry in equal measures.

What's at stake? Without the tax revenues promised by Proposition 1A, the state faces an additional $16 billion shortfall over three years - in addition to the existing $8 billion gap between revenues and spending.

Translation: If key proposals are approved, state and local government will limp along for another year. If the measures are rejected, state and local government will be in crisis mode again - with the prospect of more layoffs and more program reductions.

Opinion polls show that most Californians don't know what is contained in these six ballot measures. In fact, many voters don't even know there's an election on the way.

"People are quite surprised when they hear about it," Sonoma County Elections Manager Elizabeth Acosta told me. "It's new to a lot of people. That's our sense."

The same polls show that the voters who do know what's in store are less than enthusiastic about endorsing additional taxes during economic hard times. Even in liberal Sonoma County, an informal online poll of Press Democrat readers suggested local people are divided.

Statewide, only one of six measures is enjoying the support of a majority of voters, according to the March survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. You won't be surprised to learn that it's the only measure that gives voice to the public's antipathy toward state politicians.

We talk a lot about the state's perennial budget crisis, but what we have here is a crisis of leadership. We don't trust this generation of politicians to get anything right, and the more we don't trust them, the more they prove untrustworthy.

Close to home, we see this disarray reflected in the deterioration of hometown governance. This was the week that Petaluma announced its intentions to outsource its planning department.

And this was the week that county supervisors announced plans for a major building program, even as they scrambled to cut spending by at least $11 million in the next fiscal year.

The word that comes to mind is . . . surreal.

In simple terms, this election will decide whether the state will be tossed back into the budget mess that existed before Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature agreed on a grab bag of fixes in February.

To help you get started - assuming you want to get started - here's the line-up for the May 19 election:

- Proposition 1A would extend for up to two years the sales, income and vehicle tax increases contained in the February budget agreement. The additional cost to taxpayers would be $16 billion between 2010 and 2013. The measure would also mandate an increase in the size of the state's emergency fund and limit new spending in years in which revenues are high. The proposal is designed to placate liberals and conservatives, but as a political strategy, it's met with mixed success.

- Proposition 1B would provide an additional $9.3 billion in spending on education in future years, supplementing recent budget cuts. But - and here's the hook - it won't take effect unless Proposition 1A passes.

- Proposition 1C would authorize the state to borrow $5 billion against future lottery profits. You may recognize a familiar pattern: Let's find yet another way to borrow against the future.

-Proposition 1D would allow the state to take $608 million over two years from the state Children and Families Commission. The money, derived from tobacco taxes, would be re-directed to other children's services.

-Proposition 1E would allow the state to take $460 million over two years from money designated for mental health programs.

-Proposition 1F would deny raises to state lawmakers in years in which they fail to pass a balanced budget. Which could be almost every year.

Guess which measure is supported by 81 percent of the voters in the last PPIC poll. The support for Proposition 1F is what happens when the approval rating of the state Legislature is 11 percent. Yes, 11 percent. Not even Dick Cheney fell to an 11 percent approval rating.

Note that three of these measures attempt to modify mandates from previous ballot measures: Proposition 1B (Proposition 98 from 1988), Proposition 1D (Proposition 10 from 1998), and Proposition 1E (Proposition 63 from 2004). In California, we spend a lot of time tying ourselves into knots.

So, here we are. No one brings any enthusiasm to this election - even though the consequences will be lasting.

As good citizens, we promise to stay informed and to vote - so long as we don't have to pretend that this latest election is anything other than proof that state government is an embarrassment to us all.

Note: If you don't vote by mail, you may not be voting at your usual polling place. As a cost-cutting measure, the number of polling places for the May 19 election has been reduced from 304 to 169. For more information, check your sample ballot or visit the Sonoma County Elections Department Web site here.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Eager to unload the costs of planning departments, Petaluma and other cities decided to stick it to developers. Developers made easy targets, and they weren't going to complain. They were just going to pass the costs on to their customers.

But no one asked the question: What do we do when there are no more developers?

Paul Payne's story today - here - reports that Petaluma is talking about getting rid of its planning department and assigning the work to another city department or to a private consultant.

It's a terrible idea on many levels - and a potential embarrassment for a city that once defended its planning department all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

In effect, the city would give away some piece of the things that matter about city planning - independence, local control, community access, brainstorming about the future. The arrangement might not save money either.

But Petaluma and other towns may be stuck. Even in good times, they were happy to pass the cost of local government to someone else. Now, in bad times, they get to deal with the consequences.

For Sonoma County, a series of public workshops isn't likely to generate surprises or miracle remedies for an $11 million budget shortfall.

In recent years, there has been a common refrain to budget meetings. People show up and say: Whatever you do, don't cut spending on my favorite program or project. No one mentions what should be cut instead.

In real life, someone's favorite program or project will be cut. Blame the worst economic conditions in 70 years. Blame political dysfunction in Sacramento. Blame state mandates that leave local government with little discretionary spending.

No one likes the situation in which needed programs are reduced or abandoned, but until state government chooses a more coherent approach to taxes and spending, not much is going to change.

Still, even without great revelations, these hearings could be useful. County officials should move around the county and hear what people have to say. (It's good politics, too.)
We're going through tough times. Politicians need to know what people are experiencing - and people need to understand the challenges faced by the politicians.

For the schedule of hearings over the next five weeks, check out the Bleys Rose story here.

While political folks of various stripes this week debate whether the Sonoma County central landfill should be publicly- or privately-owned - see the Bleys Rose story here - one unpleasant financial reality often goes unmentioned.

The reality is this: Public or private, the landfill isn't likely to be re-opened unless Sonoma County cities agree to share the costs and guarantee that they will send their garbage to the re-opened landfill.

If the cities don't agree, it's likely Sonoma County will be loading its garbage on trucks and shipping the stuff to distant sites FOREVER.

And how embarrassing would that be for a county that proclaims its devotion to environmental stewardship and measures to combat global warming?

When it comes to selling the Sonoma County landfill, the question has been asked again and again: Why would a for-profit company be eager to shoulder the financial liabilities that county government is so eager to unload?

At this morning's forum, Phil Demery, the county director of transportation and public works, provided an answer. When it comes to financing the costs associated with re-opening the landfill, Demery said, private companies "have a certain financial horsepower that we don't have."

But Alan Strachan, a consultant to North Bay Corp., the leading opponent of privatization, warned that the bill will still land in the mailbox of hometown consumers. "We should be real clear that . . . we're going to pay for this one way or the other," Strachan said.