It was the week of the incredible shrinking ballot in Napa County.

On Tuesday, three measures expected to show up on the November ballot vaporized, and a fourth took a detour into Napa County Superior Court.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors made a U-turn and pulled a proposition that would have asked voters to approve a 30-year, half-cent sales tax increase to pay for local road repairs.

Napa County leaders dropped the measure because they determined it had little chance of receiving the necessary approval from two-thirds of the voters. That is probably a fair assessment of the measure’s chances, but the decision does nothing to change the fact that the roads in Napa County are bad, both by subjective indicators like letters to the Register and by objective ratings like the grim ones issued earlier this year by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which ranked local roads as “failing.“

Cities and counties simply don’t have the money to pay for these repairs these days, as whatever discretionary funding once existed in local government now goes for increased pensions and other worker benefits.

The last word has not been spoken on this subject. Expect the county, or perhaps local cities, to pose a road improvements tax when the voters seem to be in a more receptive mood.

One matter that won’t come before voters for decades is American Canyon’s urban limit line. Rather than have the people of American Canyon decide whether newly proposed boundaries are good for the city, the American Canyon City Council read the tea leaves from a mostly supportive electorate, looked at the fiscal and planning benefits of getting the limits in place right away and simply approved the new urban limits.

Under an agreement between the city and Napa County, who drew up the lines as part of a global settlement of several land use disputes, the limits cannot be changed until 2030.

In the hotel-hungry city of Napa, the developer of a proposed upscale north Napa inn pulled the plug on what would likely have been a voter referendum. The Napa City Council had already approved a Kimpton hotel for the site of the current Chateau, but a hotel workers’ union gathered the signatures to force the approval to the ballot for reconsideration, as part of the union’s beef with the Kimpton chain.

Rather than face public warfare and economic uncertainty, the developer walked away.

Finally, the Yountville Town Council decided to go to court to beat an initiative that might hamstring its efforts to build a new community center. The town wants Napa County Superior Court Judge Ray Guadagni to decide whether the measure, which would limit the town’s ability to use debt-financing for new projects, is constitutional before November comes around. Last week, anyone concerned that the November ballot was just too big and complicated now have a lot less to worry about.