EDITORIAL : PLAY IT AGAIN, L.A.; CITY TAKES VALLEY EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY MONEY, LEAVING LITTLE FOR CSUN PROJECT.

THE City of Los Angeles is trying to do to CSUN what the devastating 1994 Northridge Earthquake couldn't - knock it out.

California State University, Northridge, has made a remarkable comeback from the $42 billion earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, largely by pulling itself up from its own bootstraps.

Now, as the university appears near a historic agreement with MiniMed Inc., a booming biotech company, to bring a $90 million complex and up to 1,000 new jobs to its north campus, the city steps in with a major roadblock.

The city says the Sylmar-based biotech firm could owe up to $1 million for city street improvements that, ironically, are too far from the university to make them eligible for a federal grant program designed to help the region's economy recover from the quake.

Part of the sting for Valley business leaders is that a $30 million grant program set up by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration has gone disproportionately to the rest of the city. The Valley has gotten just over 28 percent of the $22 million distributed to date, according to city figures.

Same old story - millions for everyone else, pennies for the Valley.

It's time the Valley start kicking back.