EDITORIAL : DIAL 911 FOR BOONDOGGLE TAXPAYERS STILL WAITING FOR EMERGENCY DISPATCH CENTERS PROMISED IN 1992.

IF we didn't know better, we would almost suspect local government officials of running a secret self-sabotage campaign to make sure voters reject all future bond issues.

How else to explain the repeated bumbling and stumbling with so many voter-approved bond measures in the recent past?

As regular readers of the Daily News are well aware, our reporters have disclosed details about tens of millions of dollars from voter-approved bond measures in recent years that have gone unspent or were used for purposes other than what voters intended.

Such boondoggles and missteps erase the voters' confidence in local government, and create significant credibility problems for sponsors of future bond issues.

For example, there may be significant long-term fallout from the public anger that erupted last month when we disclosed that some Los Angeles officials were considering using $6.5 million from Proposition K - the ``L.A. for Kids'' park tax - to settle a lawsuit involving Hansen Dam and shore up a Potrero Canyon hillside. Voters approved Proposition K to provide more parks for Los Angeles children, not to pay off litigants or correct mistakes by city engineers that more properly should be handled by public works funds.

Here's another example. In 1992, voters approved Proposition M, providing $235 million to build two new emergency communication centers with a new, improved 911 system.

Construction still hasn't started and thousands of people who call the old 911 system are not getting through.

Making matters even worse, some city officials now appear to be noodling the plan to death. There is a proposal in City Hall to change the location of one of the two emergency dispatch centers from city-owned property in Westchester to downtown next to Parker Center police headquarters.

Critics say the change could raise costs by $3.2 million or more and possibly delay the project.

We're concerned about cost, and we're also extremely concerned about delays affecting life-and-death services like this one. After all, the 1992 ballot argument in favor of Proposition M promised ``immediate improvements in 911'' and stated that during 1991 more than 1 million calls to 911 were not answered by operators because of overload.

``Every day, there's an almost one-in-six chance our calls won't be answered,'' the authors of the ballot argument wrote in 1992.

Five years later, the overburdened system still hasn't been replaced and the new centers still haven't been built. Meantime, property owners have been doing their part by paying the special parcel tax to repay the bonds. Property owners have been paying it since fiscal year 1993, at a cost of roughly $12 to $25 a year for most homeowners and higher amounts for owners of very large homes, apartment buildings and commercial and industrial buildings.

It's time for city officials to do their share by acting responsibly and treating the dispatch center with an appropriate sense of urgency and haste, just as the voters did by passing Proposition M.

Any unseemly delays will only intensify voter suspicion of L.A. bond issues, and skepticism of the promises made by those who propose bond measures in the future.