EDITORIAL POWER OUTAGE MAYOR MUST ASSERT HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE DWP.

IT was a hot summer and rampant power outages that marked the beginning of the end for Gov. Gray Davis three years ago. And if Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't watch out, he could be headed for a similar fate.

Back then, Davis was like the proverbial deer in the headlights, paralyzed by blackouts that started in San Diego and within months darkened most of the state. He ignored the warning signs and tried every public-relations stunt he knew rather than fix the problem of insufficient power on the state's electricity grid.

Now Villaraigosa appears headed down the same path, ignoring the impact of the worst heat wave in L.A. history until blackouts left parts of nearly every neighborhood in the city sweltering without air conditioning.

The Department of Water and Power has plenty of electricity; it just can't deliver it because its ancient infrastructure is falling apart.

Both Davis and Villaraigosa inherited their problems -- state energy deregulation took place under Gov. Pete Wilson, and the DWP's failings have been building for decades because ratepayers' funds were being looted instead of being invested in modern transformers and other equipment.

Davis ended up taking the fall because he didn't take responsibility. Villaraigosa, too, is acting as if caution is the better part of leadership.

To hear the mayor tell it, the blackouts and the blown transformers are the result of little more than bad weather. ``The taxing heat, the humidity ... it's going to affect devices.''

Well, sure it will -- especially when those devices are decades past their shelf life. ``We're in the process of buying new transformers,'' Villaraigosa says, ``but because they are buying them all over the state, we may have a problem getting them.''

Maybe that's because the DWP should have bought transformers decades ago, instead of waiting for old ones to explode on a hot summer day.

That's the real problem Villaraigosa needs to address: Why hasn't the DWP maintained its infrastructure? The signs have been with us for some time -- remember the three power outages during much milder days last September?

This is not an issue of money. The DWP has been awash in cash for years.

The DWP leads city agencies in doling out rich pay raises to its employees, the best-paid in all of L.A. government. Although it's a monopoly, it sponsored the Dodgers, funneled cash to various politically connected community groups and squandered millions on P.R. without ever checking the bills. It regularly pours millions into L.A.'s coffers to help City Hall support the nation's best-paid elected officials, bureaucrats and workers. It even bankrolled goofball electric scooter and electric leaf-blower schemes.

No, money isn't the issue. Priorities are.

The DWP -- like the rest of City Hall -- simply hasn't prioritized serving the public.

Yet rather than denounce this failure and demand accountability, Villaraigosa makes excuses.

How in the world can he call for power over the schools and promise he will hold teachers, principals and bureaucrats accountable, when he won't hold city officials accountable?

He is at a turning point, and needs to put the do-nothing City Council in its place and assert his authority.

Or he will find the public starts blaming him for what's wrong rather than the weather.