A VALLEY SCORNED L.A. SHOULD PAY FOR YEARS OF DEVOTION.

Byline: Joseph Honig Local View

AS divorces go, the proposed split of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles is one for the record books: more than a billion dollars in assets to be inventoried, squabbled over and eventually distributed between former lovers whose rocky romance may have run its course.

In the silk-stocking world of high-profile breakups, the Valley-city contretemps looms as the mother of all partings; entertainment baron Steven Spielberg may have given ex-wife Amy Irving close to $100 million, but such a settlement is loose change when one considers the real estate, buildings, services and resources at issue in the domestic disturbance of possible Valley secession.

Even the recent divorce of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are nothing more than penny-ante procedures when compared with L.A. saying goodbye to almost 4 million taxpaying souls.

But as lawyers and bureaucrats prepare our civic soap opera for a vote, something seems dreadfully wrong.

The vast and bountiful San Fernando Valley, a once golden land that has given so much to Los Angeles, may be cut off without so much as pocket money.

After close to a century of service.

After housing, nurturing and sustaining so many of the people who faithfully trooped through the Cahuenga Pass each workday to make Los Angeles a great and welcoming metropolis.

After giving City Hall the best years of its citizens' lives.

For if voters approve a split, the commission in charge of secession procedures has been advised to send the San Fernando Valley packing without so much as a library book. Oh yes, current suggestions allow Valley residents to hold on to their streets, the equivalent, say, of giving an ex-spouse the driveway but not the house.

Some deal.

Because if ever a divorce proceeding called for alimony, support, custody and property, we are looking at it.

After all, some of the most vocal divorce proponents see the Valley as a neglected ex-lover whose onetime partner, mighty Los Angeles, was at best inattentive and at worst neglectful.

So why should L.A. be allowed to take all its marbles - not to mention furnishings, housewares, bank accounts and those little matters of police stations and a civic center - and move on? Why should the Valley, which has cleaned, clothed and housed workaday Los Angeles, suddenly be put in the position of an ex-wife forced to buy back treasured china from a skinflint former husband?

That we live in an era when even unmarried former lovers reap rewards from so-called palimony suits makes the Valley's plight even more outlandish.

Our two warring parties are indeed formally entwined - by law - and yet would-be residents of a Valley municipality may be treated like one-night stands: pickup dalliances whose partner didn't bother asking for a phone number. Pleasant memories without names.

Thus if ever a marital endgame called for a superstar divorce lawyer, the Valley-city donnybrook is it. Last time anyone checked, California was still awash with matrimonial mouthpieces. Maybe it's time to call Marvin Mitchelson - if Valley rebels want to leave with more than their socks and a few street signs.

At the moment, there is much talk that California law prevents Los Angeles from giving up assets without payment. And there is an equal amount of speculation that should a split be approved, a new and as yet unnamed Valley city might make token contributions or sign dollar-a-year leases for amenities needed to service citizens.

This is all well and good - settlement conferences are indeed routine parts of divorce proceedings - but, again, the men and women who want out of Los Angeles could be aiming too low at a deep-pockets target.

The Valley may be not unlike a long-serving wife, yearning to break free but somewhat tentative and ill-prepared to step out alone into an uncertain future.

Boulevards without buildings are little compensation to secessionists who want out of civic matrimony.

Maybe L.A. should pay for all those years of loyal, unflinching service, of affection and love that, for whatever reasons, may be long gone.

Amy, Nicole and Demi might agree.