AT YOUR SERVICE; HURRAY FOR CHICK'S VISION OF LOS ANGELES VOLUNTEERS.

Byline: JANE ROBISON

``HI. My name is Jane, and I'll be your volunteer city employee today. How may I help you?''

I love this new era of volunteerism. When President Clinton and retired Gen. Colin Powell joined forces in Philadelphia this year and urged all Americans to come to the aid of their politicians, I was in the front row yelling my heart out (thanks to a digitally enhanced photo).

Now Councilwoman Laura Chick has brought that concept to Los Angeles through the Neighborhood Codewatch Program. I, for one, could not be more thrilled at the prospect of contributing all my free time to putting a spit shine on the city of Los Angeles.

If ever a city government needed to be spit upon, it's L.A.'s.

Thousands of nuisance complaints pour into the city every year. The Building and Safety Department alone receives 70,000 calls annually. But inspectors are too busy focusing on housing conditions, construction and leaf blower violations to spend enough time handling lesser code violations.

Volunteers to the rescue. Sign me up for the fabulous fight on blight. Put me down for taking a bite out of crime and ridding the neighborhood of overflowing trash. Count on me to snitch on neighbors and businesses with weed-strewn lots.

I'm here to eradicate all unsightly and unhealthy intrusions in the City of Angels I can find.

I have a shovel. Maybe I could dig a few holes and save a million dollars for the MTA's subway to the San Fernando Valley.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. If I had a sickle, I'd probably be locked up. Some people call it a sickle. I call it a sling blade.

Speaking of hammer and sickle, some cynics are calling this so-called volunteerism a covert and sinister attempt to achieve a social agenda that suspiciously mirrors the eighth plank of the Communist Manifesto: ``Equal liability of all to labor.'' In other words, involuntary servitude, forced labor without compensation, a commie pinko plot.

How can anyone think this new era of volunteerism resembles a return to communism?

It's a labor camp of love, I tell you. After all, the San Fernando Valley is the home of volunteerism, as Mayor Richard Riordan rightly observed. We're volunteer central, the wings on the City of Angels.

Stand back, L.A. The Valley is about to take flight.

We in the Valley could turn our community around with an all-volunteer city work force. Volunteers who love animals could oversee animal shelters. Parents and residents who love kids could become volunteer teachers and teacher's aides. Think of the good works we'd be accomplishing.

And when the Valley successfully secedes from downtown Los Angeles, we can repeal property taxes because we'll be relying on our all-volunteer force of residents to police our streets, make citizens' arrests, stomp out fires, pick up trash.

Sure, it requires a little more of a commitment by local residents. By necessity, making government more local requires residents to do many community jobs for themselves.

As Alexis de Toqueville observed more than 140 years ago in ``Democracy in America'': ``In a local community (in the United States) a citizen may conceive of some need which is not being met. What does he do? He goes across the street and discusses it with his neighbor. Then what happens? A committee comes into existence and begins functioning on behalf of that need. . . . All of this is done by private citizens on their own initiatives.''

Giving local residents a voice and a way to make a difference is the greatest service the government can provide and the best way to swell the ranks of volunteers.

So thanks, council member Laura Chick for giving the Valley a road map toward responsibility, self-preservation and self-reliance.

Now start spreadin' the news. We're leaving today. We're making a brand new start of it, in the new L.A.

If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere. It's up to us, San Fernando Valley, San Fernando Valley.