BOLAND BILL IS NOT AIMED AT DEMOCRACY.

Byline: Mike Feuer

RESIDENTS throughout Los Angeles yearn for more responsive government. Walking door-to-door during my campaign last year, I consistently heard the frustration of citizens who felt their concerns got short shrift from City Hall. And now we have AB 2043, which purports to offer a solution. But does it?

The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Paula Boland, R-Granada Hills, would eliminate the City Council's power to veto a request by 25 percent of a community seeking to vote to incorporate as a separate city.

I support that change. In fact, contrary to the misimpression created by the editorial discussion in the Daily News on this issue, my council colleagues and I support abolishing the council's power to override the will of the people in this way. I don't, however, support what remains if the bill is adopted.

The Boland bill claims to promote democracy and self-determination. In reality, the bill is stunningly anti-democratic. It leaves intact present law which limits the right to vote only to those in an area seeking to secede, prohibiting voters in other areas from having a voice in the matter despite the impact of secession on their own lives.

Boland's essential argument is this: The law should grant the citizens affected by a decision as basic as secession the right to vote on it. It is precisely because I agree with this proposition that I oppose the bill. Where I fundamentally differ is in my definition of who constitutes ``those citizens who are affected.''

Here's why. Los Angeles' communities are profoundly interdependent on one another. Our city has a major international airport, one of the largest ports in the world, regional parks, beaches, a zoo, a National Recreation Area, a convention center, major universities and hundreds of other components which, together, make up the world-class urban metropolitan center of Los Angeles.

We all use these elements of our city freely; in fact we depend on them - for jobs, education, entertainment and to provide the economic base that funds our police, firefighters, libraries and other crucial services.

If any section of our city should decide to secede and determine its own laws, all of us should have a say.

Woodland Hills residents should have a say in whether the residents of San Pedro are able to secede and take the Los Angeles Harbor and its resources with them. Northridge voters should be able to vote on whether Westchester should separately incorporate and independently govern Los Angeles International Airport and control access to it.

In each example, Valley residents would suffer severe, negative consequences in myriad ways. But the Boland bill, denying that our futures are so deeply intertwined, would allow only Westchester voters to control ``their'' airport or San Pedro residents to determine if they want to share the revenue from ``their'' port.

Unless the Boland bill is amended to give all who are affected the right to vote when a part of our community seeks to secede - in other words, to allow a citywide vote on an issue that would affect all Los Angeles residents - I will oppose the bill because it assaults, not advances, democracy and self-determination.

But simply opposing the bill, without more, would do a serious disservice to Los Angeles residents. For the Boland bill is just one aspect of an important debate about ways to bring government closer to neighborhoods throughout the Valley, and beyond.

There is an emerging consensus in City Hall that residents should have more of a role in neighborhood issues and citywide matters. At the same time, many neighborhood decisions - on issues related to development, for example - would benefit from less contentious, more constructive debate.

These views have led me to bring together residents in neighborhoods throughout my council district to tackle issues of common concern as a team, along with me, my staff, and relevant business interests. I call these working sessions neighborhood councils. My constituents are very enthusiastic about this way of working together, and the ability to meaningfully shape decisions at early stages.

Already we have successfully addressed many issues through this and other approaches to community-involved decision-making, ranging from the best use of a vacant plot of public land adjacent to the Studio City Library to the development of the formerly blighted block known as Ventura/Woodman in Sherman Oaks to the revitalization of the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

The bottom line is clear: Neighborhood empowerment works, and has been explored with similar results by several of my council colleagues.

Building on the neighborhood council model throughout the city would provide residents crucial impact on life in their communities. And we can go further. A month ago the Council Rules and Elections Committee, which I chair, began to examine potentially sweeping reforms in the City Charter.

As I stated at that committee hearing, we should undertake this charter review with an eye to addressing the specific concerns motivating interest in Valley secession. After all, 71 years after the City Charter was adopted, council members represent a quarter-million residents when once they represented only some 25,000 Angelenos.

Some have proposed exploring the establishment of a borough system which would create a structure of government that is more directly tied to smaller numbers of constituents. We should also explore the necessary changes that will assure that resources and services re distributed fairly to the Valley and all parts of the city.

Even minor changes, like regularly moving City Council meetings to neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles, would help break down barriers to meaningful citizen participation and increase access to the representatives of all Los Angeles residents.

Effectively reforming the structure of Los Angeles' government and its system of distributing resources and services is a goal many of us share. But all of us in Los Angeles should be entitled to decide which reforms are best.

The exclusionary process that would be created by the Boland bill is at odds with the very values that motivate it.

Further, by fueling the divisive fires of secession, Boland aims for a goal - disintegrating Los Angeles into multiple fiefdoms of narrow self-interest - that isolates our people and resources from each other. This without any explanation of how doing so would improve the lives of any of us.

Twenty-first century Los Angeles deserves a more compelling vision.

MEMO: City Councilman Mike Feuer represents Los Angeles' Fifth District.

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Photo: Mike Feuer