Get ready for March 3

Californians went to the polls three times last year, most recently to culminate a presidential campaign that was exhausting not just for candidates but for voters. In a few months, we will be called on to vote again, this time to determine the state’s fiscal future in an as-yet-unscheduled spring special election featuring at least half a dozen complex ballot measures that leave to voters the decisions that in most states are made by elected representatives.

In between comes the election that time forgot -- the March 3 Los Angeles vote for mayor, city attorney, controller, more than half the City Council, much of the school board and community college board, plus five ballot measures, several of which could alter forever the way the city operates.

The people of this large, diverse, creative and exciting city will be choosing their leaders and setting their direction for the next four years. Yet the streets and living rooms are empty of buzz or anticipation.

That’s hardly new. Voters may sometimes be excited by a landmark candidacy, one that is emblematic of societal changes like Tom Bradley’s more than 30 years ago or Antonio Villaraigosa’s in the current decade, but municipal elections in California are seldom exciting affairs. That’s at least in part because much of the work that city and county governments do is ministerial, and voters grasp through years of frustrating experience the limited scope of change that any one elected official can bring.

Add to that the particular circumstances of this period in Los Angeles. Villaraigosa is running for a second term on a record of middling accomplishment for the city but mastery of the political game. With his network of campaign advisors and fundraisers, he built enough momentum to scare off challengers who might otherwise have been tempted by the weakness of his official performance -- or by the vulnerability he created with turmoil in his personal affairs -- just as Villaraigosa was drawn into the race four years ago by the lackluster Mayor James K. Hahn.

To be serious contenders, opponents need more than valid critiques of the status quo; they mustpeel away bits and pieces of Villaraigosa’s sometime restive coalition. Developer and former Police Commission President Rick Caruso attracted news attention when the filing deadline approached last fall because he has the wealth to run a serious mayoral challenge had he chosen to do so, and not because Angelenos were attracted in great numbers to a well-articulated alternative platform. In his absence, the leading opponent is attorney Walter Moore, who also is part of an informal opposition slate and who is leading the fight against two of the five ballot measures.

Then there is timing. We vote in odd-numbered years, counter to state and federal elections, supposedly because citizens need to devote their full attention to city and school board races without the distraction of other offices. The result is the opposite: Turnout in city elections is stunningly low. Even in the two hotly contested races between Hahn and Villaraigosa, in 2001 and 2005, barely a quarter of eligible voters cast ballots. In the 2007 runoff, 4.7% of eligible voters bothered. Now we vote in March instead of April, ostensibly to avoid spring break and to allow more time for recounts between runoffs and the July 1 start of the new term. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. This page endorsed the change, and voters adopted it.

Pundits and policy wonks of all stripes offer additional explanations for muted city elections: the Progressive-era restriction against political parties in local races; the fact that voters and those who rely on local government services are often starkly different populations; term limits, which cause would-be challengers to wait a few years until seats open up.

Yet even this year there are challengers: 10 candidates are running for mayor, six for city attorney, three for controller. Four are vying for two open seats on the school board; six seek the open seat in the 5th Council District; every community college board seat is contested.

The Times’ editorial board interviews and examines candidates and endorses those we believe are the best. But in local elections, the exercise veers toward pointlessness. Too often, challengers and candidates for open seats who lack the blessing of the political establishment base their campaigns on little more than critiques of the status quo. Those critiques may be valid and still be insufficient arguments for why the particular challengers deserve election.

We too critique incumbents, and often end up backing them, not because they have done terrific jobs but because their challengers are not credible alternatives. Yet the incumbents spend much of their time in office making sure that credible challengers never materialize -- not by protecting and advocating for residents and the quality of life in Los Angeles but by catering to the contributors who seek city contracts, or better labor accords, or project approvals. There is a point at which endorsing candidates comes perilously close to endorsing the status quo while complaining about it.

Still, The Times is interviewing candidates, and we cling tenaciously to the hope that we can endorse people equipped to make city government and the schools more efficient and more effective. We will not feign enthusiasm when none is warranted. We will reserve the right to endorse no one but try nevertheless to pick the best available.

We’ll back away, for this election, from our otherwise steady progress toward completing our endorsements by the time vote-by-mail ballots become available. That date is Feb. 2 -- fittingly, perhaps, Groundhog Day -- and we won’t be done by then. There are 66 candidates for office and ballot-measure campaigns, and we will not rush an endorsement without the time we need to study the people and the issues. Hang on to your ballots -- there are still five weeks before election day.

One more thing: Our discussion of the controversial solar power charter amendment and the four other ballot measures will go beyond editorial board meetings and will take place in these pages, online at latimes.com/opinion and on our blog at opinion.latimes.com/opinionla. We invite you to join the discussion.