A NEW WAY FOR L.A. : VOTERS MUST OK PROPOSITION 8, CREATING A CHARTER REFORM PANEL TO OVERHAUL DOCUMENT SO RESIDENTS HAVE VOICE IN RUNNING OF CITY.

Byline: David W. Fleming and Richard H. Close

THE Daily News series ``Living Beyond Our Means'' has dramatically focused attention on the huge increase in city spending and staffing - although city services and the quality of life in the city have declined.

All of this was done in direct contravention of the clear message of Proposition 13: Live within your means. Reduce the size and cost of city government. Deliver services more efficiently and effectively.

Emblazoned on the sides of our city's police cars is the unofficial slogan of Los Angeles: ``To protect and serve.''

The questions we now ask are: To protect whom? To serve whom? And to what ends?

The citizens of this city were clearly not served by the fourfold increase in the city's budget (from $1 billion to $4 billion) over the past 20 years. Nor were we financially protected by the raising of the city's debt from $201,000 to $3.6 billion.

Nor was public safety (the primary role of city government) enhanced by reducing fire and police protection. Nor were we served by cutting the number of direct-service employees, such as librarians, custodians, etc.

The facts now show what the council actually did during those 20 years. It substantially sweetened city workers' wages, benefits and pension packages to levels far above the averages paid to workers in the private sector. In addition, the number of supervisors and managers increased, while the number of people providing basic services declined.

We are not suggesting that the council should ignore legitimate, reasonable concerns for the welfare of city workers. But neither should the legitimate interests of the other 3.5 million residents be summarily subordinated to the wishes of city employees.

Council members interact with city department heads and employee union leaders on an almost daily basis, but rarely, if ever, do they personally interact with a significant portion of their 250,000 constituents.

So guess who commands the attention of many council members. And guess who doesn't.

Most council members and city unions have always maintained a mutual-admiration society (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours). The Daily News provided ample proof of this.

We now are confronted with a crumbling city infrastructure. Aging water and sewer lines (some of them 100 years old) are waiting to rupture in heavy rains or mild tremors. City streets are repaved once every 108 years on average (the mayor has been able to shorten that time somewhat).

The city has reduced hours for parks, libraries and other municipal facilities, delayed street-light maintenance, tree trimming and street cleaning. Yet, the number of supervisors has increased.

All told, it will take several billions of our tax dollars just to bring our decaying infrastructure up to acceptable levels, much less expanding or modernizing them.

Those ensconced in City Hall enjoy job security and benefits levels far beyond the reach of the average taxpayer toiling in the private sector, competing in a global marketplace, which provides no job security.

So who's at fault?

For the past 72 years, our charter has anointed the 15 members of the City Council (it's been fixed at 15 since 1876, when the city's population was only 9,000) with broad powers to collectively manage the city. No council member is held accountable for the mismanagement.

The current charter, an arcane, 700-page document that has been amended more than 400 times, is a hodgepodge of conflicting rules and regulations, laden with legal minutiae. Yet, voters are called upon biannually to approve charter amendments, most of them highly technical.

You might try reading the texts of this election's proposed amendments (Propositions 1 through 7) to see if you thoroughly understand them and their effects on the rest of the charter.

But then again, do you really care about such mundane matters when our current charter fails to give us the right to vote on important issues arising within our neighborhoods and communities? In fact, it doesn't even recognize neighborhoods or communities.

The failure of the City Council and the charter to meet our needs is more than self-evident.

Thanks to the citizens charter reform effort, born 10 months ago in the San Fernando Valley and nurtured by Mayor Richard Riordan and others, we at last have the opportunity to restructure our city government from the ground up.

The first thing we must all do is vote ``Yes'' for Proposition 8 on April 8. A majority of yes votes will assure the creation of the citizens charter reform commission.

The next thing we must do is to vote for a candidate running for the commission and, just as importantly, know who is backing each candidate.

The city employee unions and the council have been fighting charter reform since the effort began. They tried every trick in the book to block Proposition 8 from reaching the ballot. Now they are pulling out all the stops to hold on to their power by attempting to stack the new commission with people dedicated to preventing meaningful reform.

Meantime, efforts will continue in Sacramento to pass legislation eliminating the City Council's veto power over the rights of citizens to decide whether parts of this city should eventually become separate cities.

The threat of Valley secession, coupled with the growing cynicism and disconnect felt by Los Angeles' citizens toward city government, has fueled the current momentum for reform. Should meaningful charter reform fail to come about, the eventual breakup of Los Angeles will become inevitable.

In our view, the dawning of the 21st century will produce historic changes in this city, one way or the other.

In the words of one Valley citizen upon reading this newspaper's revelations of what our city government has done and failed to do for the past two decades, ``Enough is enough.''

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Photo: (1) FLEMING

(2) CLOSE