EDITORIAL ADVISE AND DISCONTENT COMMUNITY NEEDS TO BE EMPOWERED IN LANDFILL OVERSIGHT.

IN Los Angeles, ``advisory panels'' are a dime a dozen, starting with the 100 neighborhood councils. They're usually powerless as well as purposeless, and, so far, the Bradley Landfill oversight committee is no exception.

Ruth Galanter, the former Westside City Council member who, by a fluke of redistricting, briefly represented the east San Fernando Valley, introduced a measure to form the committee four months ago. The motion included provisions for naming the panel's 11 members as well as furnishing them with $500,000 for health studies and neighborhood improvements.

In theory, the committee would serve as a watchdog over a dump that's elicited complaints over matters such as air pollution, blowing trash and public health. It would monitor landfill operations and the dump's proposed 43-foot height expansion.

But since then, Galanter has left the council, replaced by Tony Cardenas, and the committee has yet to define its mission, let alone take any action.

In fact, the committee has held a dismal three sessions, and even those don't count, as they weren't in compliance with the state's Brown Act, which mandates open meetings. And dump opponents claim that the committee will never amount to much, as its membership is disproportionately weighted toward interests that support the dump.

But the committee can prove the naysayers wrong when it holds its first official meeting today, in compliance with the Brown Act, thanks to help from the City Attorney's Office.

After four months of inactivity, the group should waste no time getting down to business, providing the vigorous oversight that a landfill in a densely populated area demands.

Whatever happens should be a good indication of whether the Bradley oversight committee will live up to its name, or merely follow in the light footsteps of the many failed advisory panels that have preceded it.