BUREAUCRATS ALWAYS WORK AGAINST US.

Byline: Kimit Muston Local View

I know it's a foolish pipe dream, but I can't stop hoping that some day, before the denizens of City Hall rubber stamp another development permit or quietly change another zoning ordinance, they'll pause and ask themselves, ``I wonder if the people in this neighborhood really want the huge landfill in their back yard to double its capacity? Yes, the landfill lobbyist - who used to work next to me - says that letting the dump stay open for another 50 years will improve the quality of life, but perhaps we should instead listen to the citizens who pay our salaries and close this landfill in the middle of a living, breathing community as soon as practical.''

That's my dream.

But then I also dream that some day the Boston Red Sox will win the World Series, the Lock Ness monster will pose nude for Playboy, Big Foot will hold a press conference to announce he's been sharing a cave with Elvis, and George W. Bush will carry California in the 2004 election.

We must have the only city government in America that is suing to stop its own citizens from opposing an illegal housing development in their Chatsworth neighborhood. We have the only city government in America that drove one-third of its citizens to vote not to leave town but to have the town leave them. We have the highest-paid city bureaucracy in America and one that remains perpetually oblivious to taxpayer anger, frustration and disgust with its actions.

The way City Hall dumps on its own citizens can be illustrated in the story of our dumps. Back in the early 1990s, Sunshine Canyon Landfill was closed a decade early because of community pressure and numerous health- and operating-code violations. But lobbyists for Browning Ferris Industries, which ran the dump, helped the Department of Sanitation produce a horror story report that stampeded the City Council into permitting BFI to re-open Sunshine and even extend its operation half way into the next century.

Public outrage over that fueled the secession movement in Granada Hills. The mayor managed to stop Sunshine's re-opening but only on a technicality that no self-respecting judge would respect, and the Sanitation Department is still pushing to re-open Sunshine.

And now there's the story of the Bradley Landfill, above Sun Valley, operated by Waste Management Inc., which wants to expand the dump by 10 percent, raise its height by 43 feet and extend its life by four years. Our city government decided, without any public notification, that Waste Management needed only a permit to get started with the expansion - until the county and the state pointed out that any change in elevation required an environmental review, a public hearing, etc., etc. Oops. Must have been oversight.

Except the city and Waste Management have been through this same little dance before, back in 1998 when the city decided that a simple permit would do and the state decided otherwise. Sound familiar?

The mayor says he is opposed to any city landfill within city limits. And even if the mayor's verbal opposition can't always be counted on to produce actual opposition, Ruth Galanter, who represents Sun Valley until June, and Wendy Greuel, the new super councilwoman from the Southeast Valley, have both gotten involved, and both of these ladies have a history of getting results.

But it was Galanter who put her finger on the jugular of this situation when she said, ``I'm rather puzzled and disturbed that there are all these discrepancies between the city's information and the state's information.'' Yeah, me too, Ruth.

I'm puzzled as to why the bureaucracy of this city never sides with its own citizens. I find it disturbing that the people of Los Angeles always seem to find themselves fighting City Hall. My God, you would think that the folks in City Hall would begin to wonder themselves why every action they take leads to such rancor. And that maybe the problem is not with the citizens but with the city.

The City Hall non-union administrators and managers are currently up for a 4 percent pay raise, which would allow 15 of them to make more than $200,000 a year. But until the bureaucracy begins showing respect for the citizens, I don't think they deserve it, and I think anybody who supports such a raise deserves to get fired.

The City Council will be voting on those raises this month. Please drop 'em a note. Tell them what you think.