CITY ATTACK ON BRUSH IGNITES VALLEY SPIRIT.

Byline: JANE ROBISON

IT appears the city of Los Angeles has embarked on a massive scorched earth cleansing to take the ``wood'' out of Woodland Hills.

I refer, of course, to the infamous Annual Brush Clearance Inspection Fee.

Dated April 1 but mailed to arrive last weekend when people were hiding Easter eggs under their lush shrubs and around their verdant lawns and on the limbs of their beautifully wispy pepper trees, the letter from the Fire Department could not have been more incendiary.

According to the Fire Department's BRUSH CLEARANCE - MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS, my tract house a couple of miles from the hills of Woodland Hills is a veritable landfill of hazardous vegetation.

``Dear Property Owner,'' it begins ominously, ``The Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 57.21.07 holds property owners responsible for clearance of hazardous brush, dry grass, weeds, and other flammable materials.''

Right away, I was outraged.

As it happened, someone left a faded gray Cadillac Eldorado, with expired plates, a bashed-in trunk and a flat tire, in front of my house that appeared highly flammable if you put a rag in the gas tank and lit it.

Naturally, I wanted to do my duty for the Valley and the city of Los Angeles. So I called 1-800-ABANDON to report that evidence from the John Gotti trial in New York was mistakenly left in front of my house and could the city please come and get it within 48 hours as promised.

Instead, I was told the city has abandonment problems: Angelenos, unaware of the tax advantages of donating clunkers to charity, are getting out of their cars in record numbers. I assume they're taking the subway or other forms of the city's excellent public transportation system and leaving their little gems behind in neighborhoods just like mine.

In other words, the city's a little behind in collecting gas-guzzling clunkers, and they'll be out in about two weeks.

Two weeks?

When your neighborhood's a tinder box, which, according to the Fire Department, mine is, two weeks is an eternity.

I thought about donating the vehicle to charity myself and graciously accepting the tax credits on behalf of underprivileged drivers everywhere. But I was afraid if I looked in the glove compartment for the registration papers, I might find a horse's head left behind by the son of Gotti.

So I was sitting in my little dream home surrounded by outlawed hedges with an abandoned car primed to explode and being told by the Fire Department that if I didn't pay $13 in protection money, I would be charged a 200 percent penalty.

I felt like I was living in New York again.

And that's when there came a rap, rap, rapping upon my door.

It was Laverne, my next-door neighbor. Laverne was organizing the block to call our council person to protest the city's ultimatum to tear out our tall trees, our lovely green hedges, our smartly trimmed shrubs.

The city had decided it was Scorched Earth Day in the Valley. This was war.

I've never seen my neighbors so outraged.

Actually, I've never seen my neighbors until the city sent this notice out.

Talk about a barn-burner of an issue. The city might as well have called it The Annual Secession Fee to Spark Outrage Against the Bond and All Things Pertaining to Downtown Los Angeles, but City Clerk Michael Carey forgot to include the addendum with the invoice notices.

Naturally, being a patriotic citizen, I signed up to man the phone banks and to tear sheets into bandages once the revolution begins.

What strikes me as odd about the timing of Scorched Earth Day is that it arrived just two weeks before the Fire Department wanted people to vote on the $744 million bond to build more fire and police stations.

I guess they think we're just a bunch of dumb tree huggers in the Valley, and we won't notice their grand plan.

If there are no trees in Woodland Hills to trim and maintain, then there are no sidewalks to repair, then there will be no reason for another bond measure to fix sidewalks, then the city can go for another billion-dollar bond measure in a year to pay for the police and fire stations they never built from Proposition 1.

It's all part of a grand plan. First they denude Woodland Hills and then the Valley. And then they turn over the land to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to fence and preserve from human use.

And maybe one day, the loons - no, not the City Hall variety - will return.

Like life itself, Scorched Earth Day is beautiful.