EDITORIAL COMMUNITY TOOLS QUICK RESPONSE TO GANG-PLAGUED NEIGHBORHOOD OFFERS HOPE.

IT'S not every day that city officials admit ignorance of a city problem.

But that's what Councilman Richard Alarcon and Capt. Jorge Villegas, commanding officer of the LAPD's Mission Division, did last week. And for that, we commend them.

The two were responding to a Daily News story on Monday that revealed that the year-old Safer Cities Initiative hadn't worked in Panorama City and North Hills -- the area known as "The Witch's Hat" -- a wedge of a community bounded by Woodman Avenue to the east, Roscoe Boulevard to the south and a portion of Kester Avenue to the west. The story noted that residents were so terrorized by gangs and drug dealers that they don't report crimes.

The stories of the communities' members opened their eyes, and did so quickly. As such, the Safer Cities Initiative will be modified for these communities. In addition, they promised more law enforcement efforts to specifically target the special needs of those two communities.

It will surely take more than just two city officials admitting a deeply rooted problem to solve it. But it's a start to developing a community-wide problem that can at the very least start giving the community tools and information for it to fight the crime in its own way, and on its own turf.