EDITORIAL IMPERIOUS ROMER LAUSD CHIEF WANTS YOUR TAX DOLLARS BUT OFFERS NOTHING IN RETURN.

ROY Romer, the wealthy superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has bamboozled a lot of important people like state Board of Education members into seeing him as the Education King.

Forget paying homage to democracy or feigning humility. With the San Fernando Valley denied its right to decide on local control of its schools, Romer no longer has to worry about a peasant uprising and can get on with building his empire and preening himself into a legend.

Carried away with himself after the state board killed LAUSD breakup last week, Romer declared candidly: ``If you're approaching this as OK, the Valley lost the battle. What can you offer as the consolation prize? - that's the wrong question. There is no consolation prize.''

No local board to manage school funding, no making the impenetrable LAUSD bureaucracy more responsive, not even a symbolic little bit of power-sharing.

The Valley ``lost the battle,'' and the emperor is brooking no opposition.

He wants to raise the taxes of his Valley subjects. The LAUSD has long promised 80 new schools - 90 percent of them outside the Valley - and to pay for them with what's left from the $2.4 billion in Proposition BB bond funds and $1.3 billion from a planned new bond measure. Now Romer wants to build an additional 125 campuses in the next 10 to 12 years, and that will require even higher taxes, paid for disproportionately by Valley property owners.

Lesser egos might blanch at the thought of asking the public for more money only weeks after admitting that Prop. BB is $600 million short and nearly three years behind in meeting its promises.

Not imperious Roy.

Romer knows Valley residents now have no hope for breaking away from the bloated school district that has failed them consistently for decades. He knows that his promise of improved instruction is all Valley residents have left, and so, in their desperation, he hopes they'll obligingly pour in still more of their hard-earned money.

How building an additional 125 schools on top of the 80 already planned will improve instruction is anyone's guess. It would put an end to the need for year-round schooling, which is fine, but hardly the most pressing concern in the LAUSD. Far more important is to rein in the bureaucracy, raise standards, give teachers more freedom and demand greater accountability.

But don't expect anything so bold from Romer. He no longer needs to fear the Valley, and so he no longer must even pretend to respect the community.

Valley residents can expect more of the same if and when their cityhood efforts should fail. Without the club of secession, local leaders become even more arrogant in their power.

And Emperor Roy is power at its most arrogant.