Take a Google Earth trip, looking down on Marin and the Ross Valley in the year 2016. From this high up not much appears to have changed since 2011, when Jerry Brown was inaugurated in January, his second go around at the job.

Not too many recall the Governor’s dire predictions made in late 2010. He noted that the state’s budget deficit could exceed $30 billion during his first year in office. He said that it “was time to tear the band-aid off,” referring to the smoke and mirrors budgeting that had been done in California for many years.

The overall gloom swept across the state and its counties, cities and special districts like a range fire.

Many local governments filed for bankruptcy, leaving the counties to pick up what could be salvaged in public services, education, and medical programs. In some cases local voters agreed to pay taxes, almost triple what they paid in 2010, to maintain their way of life. Such rescues were few and only took place in places like San Marino and Santa Barbara.

The picture in Marin was unique because leaders with foresight looked ahead and understood that there was little chance for any further “bail outs” or “stimulus” in the foreseeable future. Imagine taking a look back at what happened in the five years since 2011.

The county administrator, with the concurrence with the Marin County Board of Supervisors, invited town and city mayors, school district elected board members, special district board members to a closed two-day workshop, “How We Are Going To Make It?” Only elected officials were invited, because there was a fear of contamination of the process by local staff, who – while being outwardly supportive – were nervously looking at their pension benefits and exit strategies.

As we look down from our Google Earth view back on what could have happened in 2011, the first day of this workshop focused on a large wall-sized map of the eastern section of Marin. On it were drawn in an overlay fashion all the town boundaries, all the fire stations, all the school districts, sanitary districts and all other special districts, along with the corporation yards. The various budgets were then separately tallied and charted by category to determine the exact costs of each service being provided. Finally, all of the various assessments and locally approved taxes were listed again by service category.

As the overlays continued to unfold, it became evident that there was unwarranted and costly duplication of services, providers, elected governing bodies and service locations. One example that was cited was that there were five fire stations on or close to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Another saw three nearby separately funded and managed police departments with separate dispatch functions. Another showed $18 million of about-to-be started civic construction projects that could be avoided or more advantageously located.

On the second day, after a full disclosure of all of the data, which highlighted crossover services provided by duplicate government agencies, the conversation tackled the concept of home rule or control. Elected fire board members argued unconvincingly that their fire stations were the most needed. School board trustees argued that their contact with parents was more crucial to the Ross Valley children than in San Rafael. Town council members argued that they had the true ear to the ground in their community. A representative from county schools then wondered, theoretically, if the elected board members would support a plan for some sort of joint management, joint purchasing, joint maintenance, and joint oversight and budget authority. The question and the affirmative answer from the entire group formed the basis for the establishment of a two-year task force of elected officials to manage and supervise top management staff in each field in each agency. The task would be to create the most cost-effective, efficient and, most importantly, user-friendly services in Marin County.

What emerged from this historic workshop was the formation of three cities: Southern Marin, Central Marin and Northern Marin. The localized districts such as Ross and Larkspur retained their names as neighborhoods, along with their zip codes to maintain the neighborhood ambience of local communities. All the elected council members’ names were placed in a lottery bowl and five were chosen. Each council was charged with developing the most efficient government for the newly formed cities. Some managers were let go, fire stations closed, police services merged and excess mowing equipment was sold along with some of the civic buildings no longer needed.

At the same time, all the school districts were combined, along with paramedic services, sanitary districts, and other specialized districts that had been formed over the years. At the same time, a county-wide task force was studying whether police services could be contracted with the sheriff or whether the same level of fire protection could be provided under contract with California’s Cal-Fire.

The two most difficult tasks of the entire effort were first convincing the elected officials that the world would not end if they were not in charge, and then sorting out of the countless revenue streams by jurisdiction to insure that no taxpayer was paying more than they had paid in 2010.

While there are still some rough edges in 2016 to be worked out it appears that the effort has, through the cooperation of all involved, insured the same or better level of services at the same cost as in 2010.

Once again Marin County took a forward looking approach to bring local government out of the costly and inefficient 19th Century model that was based on hard wired telephones, newspapers, and shovels instead of tractors.

Imagine looking back on this world, this historic change of direction five years from now. Now, imagine what we will be looking down on in 2016 otherwise. The question today in 2010 is whether we have the guts to demand change that is needed, a change that determine the future for many years to come.