EDITORIAL : SCORCHED EARTH POLICY; SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS CONSERVANCY CAN'T BE BOTHERED WITH SAFETY FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE.

PITY the poor Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the repository of thousands of acres of Grade-A, prime mountain real estate.

It has millions to spend for land acquisition and zip on brush clearance to prevent brush fires from raging through its property into housing developments.

Which means its neighbors that border the conservancy's land had better have darned good fire-insurance policies.

Sorry, but the conservancy's claim it doesn't have the money to cut brush within 200 feet of structures to comply with Los Angeles rules holds as much water as any homeowner making the same claim. Clear the brush for the community's safety and bill the property owner, that's how the fire officials deal with ordinary people and how it should deal with the privileged classes as well.

Last fall, the council donated $82,500 to the conservancy to help remove foliage, saying public safety outweighed the cost.

No wonder, the council had to tax every homeowner within miles of a brush fire area $13 each for inspections, presumably to give it away in free services to public agencies. Rob the rich to give to the poor conservancy, that's the policy.

Impose tough rules on 180,000 homeowners, perhaps half of them living in housing tracts on the floor of the San Fernando Valley, requiring them to clear trees and foliage around their homes. But let the conservancy set its own rules and priorities regardless of the public safety.

Sure, the council decided that the fire danger is so extreme this year that extreme measures were needed.

But the conservancy, with its mountain paradise offices located on Barbra Streisand's former Malibu retreat thinks that's just silly.

Fire danger? What fire danger? Not in their mountains, where the brush is thick and tall from last year's El Nino rains.

OK, sure. They have a few parcels that are just too lush for words. And, OK, so some of the parcels aren't irrigated. And, yeah, some of the driest and closest to homes are at the top of the conservancy's list for clearance.

But they're not making any promises that they'll clear the brush.

Belinda Faustinos, deputy director of the conservancy, said the organization is only one of a number of state park or resource agencies that face dilemmas trying to balance budgets and protection of wildlife habitat with local brush clearance rules.

If the conservancy and its sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which combined own roughly 35,000 acres, can afford to buy land, they better find it in their hearts and budgets to comply with local laws that include keeping it safe for neighbors.

The conservancy needs to rethink its scorched earth policy. Or perhaps the Robin Hood council can dun the whole city's 3.5 million residents for $13 to help the conservancy play it safe for the good of people as well as wildlife.