EDITORIAL LET THERE BE LIGHTS ONLY IN L.A. IS BASIC PUBLIC SAFETY CONSIDERED A LUXURY.

IT only stands to reason that in a highly taxed city like Los Angeles, simple amenities like street lights would be part of the basic government package extended to all residents, like police service or road repair.

But in L.A., street lights are a premium service, available only to those capable of ponying up $1,600 up front and $53 a year after that.

Taxes aren't enough - they only cover the costliest bureaucracy and highest-paid elected officials in America, their lavish perks, pensions and benefits, a small police force and some very basic services. Virtually nothing is left over to fix sidewalks and nothing at all to light streets in many poor neighborhoods.

That makes L.A. the only one of the country's 10 largest cities that doesn't provide street lights as a basic service, the only one that treats public safety as some sort of luxury.

So while in the nation's other large cities, and in nearby cities like San Diego and Burbank, nearly all streets are lighted, in L.A. almost a third of all city streets stay dark at night, serving as both a road hazard and a magnet for criminals.

Some of the unlit areas are rustic communities like Brentwood and parts of Chatsworth, where residents prefer the darkness. But many others, like Pacoima, are poorer neighborhoods that lack the funds to pay for the lighting they desperately need.

The result of this selfish financing scheme is that Ventura Boulevard, which has street lights, most of them working, will now be getting 17 miles of new, unneeded lights, at the cost of $8 million, while residents in Pacoima are left in the dark.

The sick irony in all this is that defenders of L.A. City Hall claim that San Fernando Valley secession would be harmful for L.A.'s poor. It's City Hall, they argue, that looks out for the interests of the downtrodden, and without the benevolence of the downtown power structure, the Valley's poor and huddled masses would be left to fend for themselves.

What an outrageous lie!

The street light issue is just the latest example that City Hall, despite its professed monopoly on compassion, long ago stopped caring about the poor in L.A. Like the middle class, the poor are merely an afterthought; first and foremost, the downtown power structure looks out for itself.

It's leaders of the Valley secession movement and candidates for Valleywide office who have raised the question of who gets street lights in L.A. and why. City Hall has been staring at the problem for half a century, but never once thought to do anything about it.

Even now, with the cruel absurdity of the city's street light program exposed, city officials pretend as though the problem is with the public, not themselves.

The Marie Antoinette Award for governmental arrogance goes, without a doubt, to Stan Horwitz, community services manager for the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting. ``If people want lights, they will pay for them,'' says Horowitz. ``What could be fairer than that?''

What about those who can't afford lights, and the people living around them, or who risk their lives passing through their neighborhoods? What about the rest of the city, which is made more dangerous by giving criminals quiet, dark streets to use as their staging grounds?

``If you can go buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks once a month, you can pay for your street-lighting maintenance,'' says Horwitz.

In other words, let them drink lattes.

That pretty much sums up the downtown power structure's attitude toward the poor, despite all of its sanctimonious posturing about secession.

It's not secession that the Valley's disadvantaged residents have to worry about, it's City Hall.