A few items landing in the “in” box worth pondering today…

* Infrastructure Bonds Might Fail? : A private poll out today suggests Californians might be a lot more worried about other issues than the state’s infrastructure. And bonds to pay for those projects could, in fact, fail if placed on the ballot. The poll of 800 likely voters comes from national pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan, & Rosner (the same firm that, coincidentally, just did a poll for our friends at NPR News) and was paid for by the California Business Properties Association and the California Tribal Business Alliance.

Among the highlights: 52% of those surveyed said they would vote no on a theoretical $32 billion infrastructure bond, while only 43% said they’d vote yes… the only region in this poll supporting a bond proposal was the Bay Area, and even there just slightly… 64% said it’s harder to do business here than any other state… and the top concerns of voters appear to be health care (77%) and education (70%).

* Kids & the Budget: A new analysis from the nonprofit California Budget Project concludes that a full 58 cents of every dollar spent out of the state’s General Fund in 2004-05 was spent on services for kids and youth under the age of 21. While most went to public schools, billions were also spent on health and human services, child care, and correctional services. The full report is here.

* Initiative Reform: Legislators from both sides of the aisle and Secretary of State Bruce McPherson today rolled out a package of proposed reforms to the California’s 94-year-old love affair with the ballot initiative. The reforms include: a modified version of the old “indirect initiative” where the initiative could, in some cases, become law through the Legislature without a costly political campaign (ACA 18/Nation)… a new review of initiative language by the Secretary of State, to avoid drafting errors reminiscent of the Proposition 77 fracas last year (AB 2460/Evans)… and an extension of the time allowed for proponents to collect signatures, from 150 days to a full calendar year, to ostensibly help grassroots campaigns that can’t afford paid signature gatherers (SB 1715/Margett).