DOWN THE TUBES FLUSH WITH SUCCESS, MAYOR HAHN PRESSES ON.

Byline: Kimit Muston Local View

I seem to recall Mayor James Hahn predicting once upon a time that should the Valley choose secession we would face financial ruin because - amongst other horrific results - our sewer rates would skyrocket. We'd be paying through the nose, so to speak.

And if we chose not to pay, our mayor hinted that the day after secession, should we citizens of a newly independent Valley choose to flush, our flush might not have anywhere to go.

It was a fairy tale designed to frighten. ``The wolf huffed and puffed and disconnected the sewage pipes, and the three arrogant and irresponsible little pigs drowned in their own effluent, while the wolf lived happily ever after. The end.''

Except of course it turned out not to be a fairy tale but more like a bad joke based on a fairy tale. The plumbing punch line was delivered last week when the mayor stood with other City Hall insiders to announce that it is necessary to raise our sewer rates by 40 percent over the next five years. This follows a DWP rate increase of 11 percent on the water coming into our homes. I guess now they've got us coming and going.

This isn't irony. Irony would be if the sewer lines in City Hall backed up, leaving the pols and bureaucrats and union leaders in their porcelain throne rooms knee-deep in the same sewer spill they've been piping to the taxpayers for the last 30 years.

No, these fee increases (never call them taxes, because if we called them taxes they'd be regressive taxes, hitting the little guy the hardest) are necessary because the Northridge Earthquake cracked so many pipes under the Valley that they are spilling sewage on average twice a day. And the Hyperion sewage treatment plant is so overtaxed (pun intended) every time somebody spits into a Chatsworth flood channel, Santa Monica Bay turns into something resembling a giant petri dish in a biological warfare lab.

After spending six years and $7 million a year in legal fees, City Hall has finally decided to settle a lawsuit filed against L.A. by citizen groups and the Environmental Protection Agency. And fixing our sewage system is the central requirement of the settlement, or as Councilman Eric Garcetti put it, ``These are mandates.''

Really, Councilman? So is drinking water and flushing. And I think my straight flush beats a pair of jokers.

Joker one: ``Bay Keeper'' first filed suit against the city in 1998 to stop the stinky overflows from the Hyperion plant - 4,500 sewage spills over the past 10 years. So City Hall has known for six years that the Hyperion plant needed a big fix.

Joker two: City Hall has known since the Northridge Quake - 10 years ago - they'd have to fix the cracked sewage pipes. But, as the mayor pointed out when announcing the new sewage rate increases, ``Everybody who owns a home knows you have to fix the plumbing.''

So why didn't Mayor Hahn fix our plumbing before he used taxpayer money to oppose secession, granting City Hall unions yearly 4 percent and 5 percent across-the-board pay raises until today the average worker in City Hall makes more than the average taxpayer. Add in generous benefit and retirement packages and a City Hall worker can expect to remain flush for life, long after the little guy taxpayer has been sucked down the pipes. Those pay raises certainly explain in part why the mayor insists that Los Angeles must now become a mega-pay toilet.

Secession remains the defining issue of Mayor Hahn's first term, and may help determine indirectly whether he gets a second. Not only did he have to empty the city coffers to buy union support to defeat secession, but it has also been alleged that some of his aides restricted city contracts to only those firms which contributed to the mayor's anti-secession campaign, and that is illegal.

Mayor Hahn risked the city's future and his own to stop a city breakup. But the goal of secession was not independence, but a more open and accountable government. Call secession the Roto-Rooter approach if you will, but as the mayor put it last week, ``I don't think people are going to object to having fewer sewer spills.''

No, they won't. But considering the continuing costs for the sewer that City Hall remains, is James Hahn really the man to clean it up?

Try this: Next time you flush, think of the mayor.