EDITORIAL CALL TO ACTION L.A. CITY COUNCIL LEGISLATORS NEED TO FILL CITY HALL'S LEADERSHIP VOID.

LOS Angeles City Council members have the opportunity to show they are ready to make tough decisions for all the people of the city and not just the insider culture that has produced the costliest and least productive municipal government in the nation.

All they need is the will.

Council members find themselves in this position, oddly enough, by way of Mayor James Hahn, who has ceded leadership to them by failing to seize it for himself. That's what makes their ability to take L.A. in a new direction all the more important.

Nowhere is the opportunity clearer than on the matter of the city's onerous business tax, which has long driven corporations, jobs and opportunity out of Los Angeles.

After a decade of dawdling, the city's Business Tax Advisory Committee was so intimidated by City Hall's fiscal mismanagement that it released a plan for a skimpy tax cut spread out over five years.

Council members Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti proposed boosting the tax cut to 25 percent over the same length of time.

Both proposals were grossly inadequate to repair the city's anti-business reputation, but at this point, any relief for business would be welcome.

But in his proposed city budget, Hahn has advocated eliminating a $5.8 million fund that would help pave the way for business-tax reform by shoring up future city budgets after tax cuts are enacted. Hahn promises to restore the funds later, but given the city's budget shortfall and his own trail of broken promises, that seems unlikely.

More likely is that the city would postpone reform until it can ``afford'' it someday in the future. But even in the fat days of the late 1990s, City Hall couldn't seem to make a priority out of reducing the business tax.

Even if Hahn were to embrace proposed reforms in full today, it would still be years before businesses experienced any tax relief. And given the woeful state of the local economy, delay is something the business climate in L.A. cannot afford.

Los Angeles must become more business-friendly, and fast. But leadership in this department won't be coming from the mayor anytime soon. Far from it. Last week Hahn pledged his fidelity to the public employee unions he needs to fund his re-election campaign.

But if the leadership won't come from Hahn, it must come from somewhere, and that somewhere must be the council.

The council has the authority and the clout to get aggressively behind business-tax reform - starting with restoring the $5.8 million fund Hahn hopes to eliminate.

The council can pass serious business tax reform and send a message to the unions, contractors and other special interests that Los Angeles' leadership is no longer for sale.

The time has come for council members to stop waiting for the mayor to give them their marching orders. The time has come for them to take on leadership for themselves.