Predictable

Except for all the unrepentant procrastinators among us, it is
time to make our New Year’s Resolutions. But before anyone rushes
into a hasty promise that is likely to be broken before week’s end,
let’s collect some helpful predictions about the New Year that lies
ahead.
By some calculations the end of year 2009 also marks the end of
the first decade of the 21st Century. Others include the next 365
days in that first decade but it hardly matters when making
sweeping predictions or taking long glances backward at what just
happened.
After all, this passing decade began with the terrorists
bombings on Sept. 11, 2001 and is ending with another terrorist
incident where a lone criminal tried to blow up an airplane with
his explosive underpants.
Yes, it’s been that kind of a decade, ending with a news-packed
year of 2009.
Recent years have been especially resistant to predictions.
Looking back, why didn’t anyone predict the bursting bubble of our
housing market? Did any of our so-called political experts predict
the election of a black man for U.S. President, a black man born to
a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas who grew up in Hawaii?
Was that so hard to predict?
Almost all of 2009’s top news stories had to do with the bad
economy, Obama’s inauguration, the national health care reform
debate, swine flu and the smoldering wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No one predicted the end to these wars and, sadly, they were right.
Too bad.
Predictions about our economy are easy: more doldrums and a very
slow recovery. Economist Christopher Thornberg visited Sonoma
County last month to share his predictions about our local economy
in the coming year. His forecast included double-digit unemployment
for most of the year, stable housing values that will remain low
with no “bounce back,” a 20 percent commercial vacancy rate and an
overall outlook that he called “grim.”
No one is challenging Thornberg’s prediction or promising
“brighter days” soon. With the state government facing a $20.7
billion budget deficit, we predict tough times for all local
schools and governments. We also predict higher taxes in our
immediate future, as much as we’d like not to see them.
We predict many new faces in local government and in our justice
system. One-third of Sonoma County’s Superior Court judges are
retiring this year and a new sheriff will be elected in June.
District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua is being challenged for a new
four-year term by his familiar nemesis, Jill Ravitch, who also ran
against him in the last election. We predict an expensive and
likely brutal campaign.
County schools, we boldly predict, will get a new top
administrator as Superintendent Dr. Carl Wong retires from
office.
Last year, two new county supervisors were elected (Shirley Zane
and Efren Carrillo) and we predict there could be two more new
faces in 2010, with Paul Kelley being challenged by North County
liberals Debora Fudge and Mike McGuire and with Petaluma’s Mike
Kerns retiring from the board.
All these primary elections will be held in June. In any race
where no candidate wins a 50 percent majority a run-off election
will be held in November when a new governor for California will be
elected, along with all U.S. Congress races and a challenge to
unseat U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.
We predict another blizzard of campaign misinformation and we
predict an outburst of the usual voter apathy and confusion.
We would also like to predict that all of our New Year’s
Resolutions will be fulfilled, but that’s like saying all
candidate’s promises are never broken.