EDITORIAL : BOLAND'S OLIVE BRANCH LAWMAKER OFFERS A DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION TO THE SECESSION IMPASSE: A CITYWIDE ELECTION.

Assemblywoman Paula Boland has done it again.

Right when the situation looked hopeless, she has given the enemies of restoring the San Fernando Valley's right to political self-determination one more chance to change their minds.

In finding a parliamentary device to revive her legislation to repeal the Los Angeles City Council's veto power over Valley secession, Boland has proposed the compromise that any secession move would be decided by a citywide vote.

That's the way the law read before 1977, when the legislature, at the behest of the City Council, imposed the veto rule because the Valley was organizing to form its own city.

That is what the City Council demanded more than three months ago when it voted 8-6 to oppose the Boland bill. The council lobbied hard and spent the public's money freely to defeat Boland's measure, AB 2043. After passing in the Assembly over a Democratic minority, AB 2043 was defeated in the Senate last week by the Democratic majority. (Actually, it won a 19-18 plurality, but Senate rules require an absolute majority of the 40-member body: 21 votes.)

The Daily News has said it, and so have many of the most active and important civic groups in the Valley: Restoration of the Valley's right to political self-determination is a necessary first step for Los Angeles to come together and begin to figure out what kind of city charter it should have, what kind of balance of power should exist between the council and the mayor, what kind of city we're going to build together in the 21st century.

The power to right this wrong and get Los Angeles moving again is in the hands of City Council President John Ferraro and Councilman Michael Feuer. They represent districts that straddle the Santa Monica Mountains and carve up the Valley, gerrymandered to dilute Valley voting strength.

It is Ferraro and Feuer who cast the deciding votes that enabled the council to oppose the Boland bill and use its powerful and costly lobbying apparatus to defeat it.

It is Ferraro and Feuer who have pushed for City Council involvement in the movement that Valley civic leader David Fleming started, with support from Mayor Richard Riordan, to reform city government.

It is Ferraro and Feuer who stand in the way of the people of Los Angeles - including the Valley, lest they forget - from getting down to the serious business of creating a new form of government for the city.

It is Ferraro and Feuer who can turn Los Angeles around.

And that's all they have to do - literally. Turn around and look this way. At the Valley. At their Valley constituents and all the others of who call the Valley home. It is here where a new and better Los Angeles is being born, where there is a vibrant citizen-driven fight under way to make the streets safe, the economy strong and the schools good.

Ferraro and Feuer said they would not accept giving up their veto power over secession without a citywide vote. Boland has given in to their demand. The legislative session ends at midnight Saturday so there is still time for them to unleash their city lobbyists to twist arms and get this compromise passed.

And if they don't give up their undemocratic veto power over a vote of the people, why would anyone think that they - and the rest of the City Council - would give up all the other myriad powers they have under Los Angeles' outdated city charter?