EDITORIAL LET THE SUN SHINE COUNTY SUPERVISORS FINALLY SEE THE LIGHT.

WATCH out, brothers and sisters, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina has seen the light!

Who would have guessed that in just a few short months, the back-room dealers down at the Board of Supervisors could be on the verge of championing open government reforms?

Back in December, it was Molina who, in one of the board's trademark closed-door meetings, urged County Counsel Lloyd Pellman to break the law and not certify a proposed ballot measure to raise the pay of home health care workers.

When news of the scandal went public, and was then confirmed by the secret meeting's minutes, Molina and her colleagues went into full damage-control mode. They instructed their executive secretary to stop taking notes during closed sessions. That way, the public would never have any way of finding out exactly what their elected officials were saying in their secret, arguably illegal meetings.

Yet now, after several weeks of sustained bad press, Molina leads the way in pushing for a new era of openness and accountability on the historically duplicitous board.

At a meeting Tuesday, the board voted to support a measure co-sponsored by Molina and Supervisor Don Knabe seeking reports on a new Sunshine Act for the council. The board also agreed, in anticipation of next Tuesday's meeting to discuss its compliance with state open-meeting laws, to consider tape-recording closed-door sessions and conducting public meetings on child deaths within the county foster-care system.

These are welcome signs, suggesting that when pressed, the board actually can take the public's concerns seriously. There's reason to hope that the supervisors' public humiliation over their secretive scheming might actually result in better, more open and honest county government.

Perhaps inadvertently, the board has stumbled onto the single greatest reason why local governments, including but not just L.A. County, so consistently fail the public.

Whether it's the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the City Council or the Los Angeles Unified School District, local governments and agencies tend to look out first and foremost for themselves, and freeze the public out of their decisions. The result is leadership that's both unaccountable and unresponsive.

But by confronting its failures, the Board of Supervisors has an opportunity to drastically change the way business is done in Los Angeles, and for the better. Tape-recording closed-session meetings is a good first step, but the bigger need is to do away, as much as possible, with closed-door meetings altogether.

One possibility the board ought to consider is letting a First Amendment lawyer, an expert on open-meetings law, into its secret sessions as a watchdog. The lawyer would inform members whenever their conversation runs into areas that should be made public to open the doors again.

The supervisors could, of course, always choose to avoid that advice. But at least the advice would be on record, and the supervisors, if ever challenged, would have to justify their secrecy. Under such scrutiny, they would be far more likely to take open-meeting laws more seriously.

They already seem to be moving in that direction. But it remains to be seen whether the supervisors' conversion to a belief in fair, open and credible government is sincere, or just a political ploy.

If they truly have seen the light, they need to let it shine on all that they do, letting it melt away years of deceit. We urge the supervisors to do the right thing and set an example for local government throughout the county.