EDITORIAL PROACTIVE LEADERSHIP MAYOR TURNS IT OUT FOR THE VALLEY.

THE news last month was of the usual City Hall slight: Los Angeles leaders were spending $800,000 to set up a tourism bureau in China but wouldn't scrape up $600,000 to promote tourism in the San Fernando Valley.

That small change was even less than the hotel tax that the Valley sends to city coffers. But the Los Angeles City Council's Trade, Commerce and Tourism Committee decided instead that LA Inc., which is charged with promoting tourism to all of the city, ought to study the idea or promoting the Valley for a couple months -- as if Valley leaders hadn't been clamoring about the issue for years.

In the old days, that decision might have been the end of the conversation until the next election, when some politician might have promised to revive the issue. But Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has rendered the council panel's nondecision moot by announcing on Thursday that he would not just get the Valley $600,000, but $600,000 times three. In all, he has promised $1.8 million to fund a three-year pilot program to promote tourism in the Valley area.

Assuming he makes good on the promise, Villaraigosa has come through for the Valley in a big way. At last, City Hall is taking seriously the frustrations of community and local economic leaders.

This might seem like a victory for just one area of the city -- and indeed it is -- but it bodes well for all Angelenos. When the leaders of the city are heeding the will of the people in one historically neglected area, there's hope for others as well.

Like those residents of South Los Angeles, of Boyle Heights, of Mar Vista, the residents of the Valley just want equal attention and distribution of city services.

At this point, it's up to community leaders in the Valley to make sure they hold the mayor to his word. Then the challenge will be to prove that the investment in the city's northern neighborhoods was worth it.