EDITORIAL : `WHAT'S THE HARM?' L.A. CITY OFFICIALS NEED AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT WHEN IT COMES TO THE SECESSION STUDY.

TO get an idea of why there are serious breakaway movements in the San Fernando Valley and the area near the Los Angeles Harbor, take a look at how L.A. city officials are reacting to efforts by the agency overseeing the secession studies to operate in a fair and credible manner.

The city is putting up a fight over how the Local Agency Formation Commission will carry out the process, suggesting it's illegal for it to be anything but a passive bystander to a terrible fight.

Does the city want to stall the study in hopes the anti-L.A. feelings subside over time and the movement evaporates? Do they hope to save the city from secession by bamboozling the ordinary citizens who have stood up for the Valley, or intimidate them into submission?

Led by Mayor Richard Riordan, City Council President John Ferraro and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who chairs the council's ad hoc secession committee, the city wanted the secession applicant - Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment - to pay for an expensive ``vision study'' of how the new city would operate and how it would look, with nothing from the city except raw data.

For LAFCO to take control of that and offer possible scenarios to various aspects of the divorce, the L.A. officials claimed, would be illegal.

LAFCO wisely rejected the city's bid, saying it would unnecessarily stall its massive study, which it wants to complete in two years, not drag out for half a decade. The agency's executive director, Larry Calemine, said he wanted to help Valley VOTE get off on the right track and explore the possibilities for the proposed city.

``What's the harm?'' Calemine asks.

We echo the sentiment.

What's the harm in giving citizens, who don't have the unlimited resources of the city treasury, city attorneys and city analysts backing them, from getting some basic direction? Isn't government supposed to assist the people in making their lives easier and better off?

Certainly, that has not been the case in Los Angeles for the last 25 years. So maybe City Hall was being uncooperative out of a force of habit.

The days of obstructionist rule in this city are over. The people running Los Angeles need to come to grips with that and change their attitude about how they treat the ordinary, working-class residents who only want to live out the American Dream in peace, safe in the knowledge that city leaders will provide the basics of urban life in the 21st century.

The backward-looking, self-preserving attitude at City Hall is the problem. Is it asking too much of our public officials to get to work fixing what's wrong with the city, pay attention to what is going on in the Valley and other neighborhoods?

The people of the city are fed up with being bullied by their public servants, who gobble up $4 billion a year in hard-earned tax dollars and provide too little in city services.

City Hall created the secession movements with its arrogance and indifference. It will cause them to succeed by continuing its pattern and standing in the way of progress.