EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP VACUUM DECEIT OR INCOMPETENCE, HAHN TRASHED THE VALLEY ON LANDFILL POLICY.

IT'S only fitting that outgoing Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn seems poised to end his tenure by trashing the San Fernando Valley.

For four years, Hahn promised to stop sending the city's trash to the Sunshine Canyon landfill in Granada Hills. But on Monday, the one company that had offered an alternative - Waste Management, Inc., which proposed shipping the city's trash up to Antelope Valley - pulled its offer.

Company officials were fed up with being jerked around by Hahn and the bureaucrats who work for him. They realized that they were wasting time and energy on a ruse: Hahn was merely posturing on garbage policy and was never going to shut down Sunshine Canyon.

This after city officials actually had the nerve to propose a 233 percent increase in garbage rates. Valley families would actually have to pay $300 a year more to have trash dumped in their neighborhood.

If that's the legacy by which Hahn wants to be remembered, so be it. Tom Bradley got his name on the airport's international terminal, Richard Riordan on the Central Library. Let Sunshine Canyon bear his name: The James Kenneth Hahn Garbage Dump.

It's not clear whether Hahn simply lied on this issue or was just too lazy to find an alternative to Sunshine Canyon. What is clear is that he didn't do his job, and he has the last five weeks of his administration to make good on his promise.

But don't hold your breath. If there were any integrity or seriousness left in the Hahn administration, city officials would have kept Waste Management at the negotiating table or come up with real alternatives.

So Hahn has left a big mess for Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa to clean up. Like Hahn, Villaraigosa has also promised to stop dumping at Sunshine Canyon. And like Hahn, he could also dodge the issue by standing idly by as the city goes ahead with plans to extend its deal with Sunshine Canyon sometime before he takes office on July 1.

That won't do. Voters overwhelmingly elected Villaraigosa because they wanted strong leadership. And even though the odds are long, this is his first opportunity to prove he's up to the job.

In the short term, Granada Hills and adjacent areas of the Northeast Valley are entitled to millions of dollars in reparations. Longer term, Villaraigosa needs to work with Councilman Greig Smith and others to develop a solution that respects the community and the environment.