I know: It’s only July. The November election is more than three months away. But soon enough, sooner than you think or want, your inbox and your doorstep will be filled with arguments for and against a host of initiatives on the November ballot.

It can get confusing, particularly with the soup of alphabet headings the registrar will assign to these measures. So let me offer a shortcut to four important local initiatives. For ease of memory, you can call them Carl’s Tax, Cindy’s Tax, Sam’s Pact and Bob’s Bet.

The first names belong to real people: Carl Guardino, the CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Cindy Chavez, a Santa Clara County supervisor; Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose, and Bob Brownstein, the brains behind the local labor movement.

If I were to do a top 10 ranking of the power brokers in the city of San Jose, they would all be on my list. (The last time I did this, in 2009, Brownstein and Guardino were on it.) This fall, all four have the task of trying to pass a measure critical to their political and ideological fortunes.

Traditionally, Santa Clara County voters have been a liberal bunch, willing to dip into their wallets for good causes. Because the local economy remains strong, they may continue to do so. But at least two measures — Carl’s Tax and Cindy’s Tax — require a two-thirds vote to pass.

Here is my personalized guide to the Big Four local initiatives. My review today is analytical rather than deeply opinionated. In baseball terms, it’s an attempt to add a name to the back of a jersey, not to judge the player.

CARL’S TAX — This is commonly known as the VTA half-cent sales tax, but everyone understands that its chief proponent is Guardino, who has been pushing hard to complete the extension of BART from Fremont to San Jose. In the $6.5 billion the measure would provide, $1.5 billion is set aside for BART. But Carl’s Tax could be called an omnibus measure — pun intended. It also has money for Caltrain, bus lines, county expressways and filling potholes. Its biggest problem is that it has to pass the two-thirds threshold. When Guardino pushed for a one-eighth-cent tax for BART six years ago, that measure barely passed.

CINDY’S TAX — One of the county’s biggest measures this year is a $950 million housing bond, which is directed particularly at the homeless. Anyone who has seen the explosion in the number of homeless people in the county will have some sympathy for the idea. But a bond must be repaid and so it is also a tax — funded by a levy of $12.66 per $100,000 property valuation. If your house is valued at $750,000, you would pay $95 yearly. Again, this demands a two-thirds vote, and there is dissension in the ranks of business leaders. The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce has come out vigorously against the measure, saying “enough is enough.”

SAM’S PACT — This measure would increase San Jose’s business license tax but keep the overall levy relatively modest. It began with a more far-reaching idea from San Jose State Professor Scott Myers-Lipton, who wanted a gross-receipts tax that would have been tougher on business.

With fears that this would drive employers from San Jose, Liccardo stepped in with a compromise: Double the revenue taken in by the business license tax from $12.7 million to $25.4 million and ditch the gross-receipts tax. The city has fashioned an ordinance that leans more heavily on landlords than on mobile tech businesses.

It’s being sold as a “modernization” of the business tax, though modernization often has an odd way of meaning more. It requires only a simple majority to pass.

BOB’S BET — At 70, Bob Brownstein may be stepping down from full-time work as director of policy and research with the labor-affiliated Working Partnerships USA. But this fall’s ballot includes a measure he has pushed for strongly, the so-called “Opportunity to Work” ordinance. It would require that any business with more than 35 employees offer additional work hours to existing “qualified” part-timers before going out to hire new workers. It doesn’t have an immediate impact on the city treasury, but some political leaders, such as Liccardo, have opposed the measure on grounds it would limit business flexibility and make it harder to attract employers.

There you have it. For now, you know the names of the players. How well their measures fare is a different issue. I’ll be returning to some of these themes as the campaign advances.

Contact Scott Herhold at 408-275-0917 or sherhold@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/scottherhold.