EDITORIAL INDECENT PROPOSAL POLITICIANS WANT TO DOOM REFORM WITH ANOTHER TAX.

LOS Angeles County residents who opened their annual property tax bill last week got the usual October shock. In addition to the general levy, it contained the ever-growing list of assessments for things such as school building, 911 service and storm-water cleanup.

Given that, it was particularly bad timing for the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission to air a proposal for yet another parcel tax -- worse, one that would raise $9 million a year to create a system of public financing for municipal elections.

Or it could have been particularly good timing, considering one's perspective. Indeed, there is no better way to doom the nascent effort to build a ``clean money'' campaign-financing system than to attach it to a tax that needs approval from two-thirds of the voters.

Nor should it. The system, which would cost about $36 million a year, doesn't need help from the already overburdened taxpayers. Not when the city's budget is $6.7 billion. It's a rider whose only purpose is to kill the proposal before it gains momentum.

Politicians don't want to clean up the political system, particularly if it means leveling the playing field for others. The system of special-interest-owned politicians works just fine for those inside the game and keeps many other potential candidates from ever entering the race.

The Ethics Commission hasn't approved the proposal yet. We encourage the group of appointees charged with cleaning up the city's politics to remove the parcel tax before it can taint the effort to clean up politics.