EDITORIAL : BACK TO BALLOT-BOX BASICS THE ISSUE OF VALLEY AUTONOMY IS GAINING MOMENTUM.

THEY scoffed at it. They denounced it. They called it a turkey.

But when the showdown came, opponents needed every trick they could muster to keep the state legislature from endorsing Assemblywoman Paula Boland's valiant effort at restoring the San Fernando Valley's right to political self-determination.

And it was only a temporary setback, not a fatal blow. Soon, those in the legislature, in the City Council and in the media who mocked democratic principles will be eating crow.

Valley voters should take heart by just how close the Boland bill came to passing, and they should take out their anger and frustration at the ballot box during the state election in November and the municipal election in April.

Almost no one gave Boland much of a chance when she introduced her bill to repeal the City Council's 19-year-old veto power over Valley secession. But as voter dissatisfaction began to rise in the Valley, Boland skillfully led her bill through the Assembly despite opposition from all Valley Democrats - Assembly members Richard Katz, Wally Knox, Sheila Kuehl and Barbara Friedman.

Next, facing a Democrat-dominated Senate, Boland fought for months against the obstructing tactics of Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer and Sen. Richard Polanco, a Los Angeles Democrat.

Responding to the pressure of their constituents, the two Valley Democrats in the Senate came around - first Sen. Herschel Rosenthal and then Sen. Tom Hayden.

The bill, under ferocious lobbying from the City Council, fell just two votes short of Senate passage.

When Boland revived the measure as a compromise plan repealing the council's veto but leaving secession to be decided by a citywide vote, the dominoes began falling. Katz, Kuehl, Knox and Friedman could no longer stand against their constituents' wishes, and got aboard.

City Councilman Michael Feuer, who cast the deciding vote authorizing the council's lobbyists to attack the Valley's right to self-determination, declared that he, too, supported the Boland compromise.

That leaves Council President John Ferraro as the only elected representative of the Valley to still oppose his constituents' rights on this issue. Ferraro has become the apostle of the status quo.

David Fleming, the distinguished Valley philanthropist and civic leader, has started a process to bring true reform to Los Angeles by rewriting the city's constitution, the charter, but Ferraro has positioned himself to undermine this effort and preserve the council's privileges. The public needs and deserves better.

The public should mobilize to elect public officials who have a genuine belief in voters' decision-making authority. They also should use the ballot box to penalize elected officials who, in opposing Boland's legislation, were saying that voters are incapable of deciding local issues for themselves.

Those politicians are dead wrong, and voters should seize any opportunity to reassert their authority over those misguided officials.