California has long known that its groundwater problem would reach crisis level. Now the crisis has indeed arrived, and as officials in Sacramento roll out rules in an effort to gradually balance water demand and supply, it’s easy to see why they waited for so long to take action.

Drought-weary Californians breathed a sigh of relief because another “March Miracle” series of storms soaked much of the northern half of the state. Sadly for the people of the Golden State, their relief is mostly misplaced. The state reported that the statewide snowpack is only 87 percent of normal and El Niño was mostly a disappointment. Farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley will receive only 5 percent of their allocation from the Central Valley Project this year. It looks like we are heading into the fifth year of a historic drought.

A battle is raging over one of the most fundamental aspects of San Diego County’s future: how folks get around.

Will commuters overwhelmingly continue to drive their cars to work, as they’ve done for decades? Or will lawmakers fashion a public transportation system — consisting largely of bus, trolley and train lines — that’s efficient and sexy enough to appeal to millennials and perhaps their parents?