EDITORIAL REMEMBERING PACOIMA CITY HALL WAKES UP TO THE NEEDS OF THE NORTHEAST VALLEY.

LIKE Rip Van Winkle, Los Angeles City Hall has awakened from a long sleep -- and actually remembered there is a Pacoima out here in the hinterlands, far from downtown.

It's only a small gesture, a token remembrance of things past, but city officials have come up with $240,000 to study transportation alternatives in this heavily congested, low-income community.

None of the money is the city's, actually, but it took city officials to weasel the money out of the California Department of Transportation and the Community Redevelopment Agency.

To the residents of Pacoima and the rest of the northeast San Fernando Valley, City Hall's unexpected attention to the area's needs comes as welcome news.

Transportation is a good start, but the Northeast Valley's needs go far beyond that. Streetlights would reduce crime. More police and more funding of anti-gang programs would help, and there's the city's long-ago broken promise to provide leadership and funding to redevelop a vast chunk of the area to generate better jobs and better housing.

Perhaps L.A.'s mayor should come out to the Northeast Valley and cruise through the small city of San Fernando, where he could see the redevelopment that has taken place while L.A.'s leadership was sound asleep.

He'd see dozens of new businesses bustling with customers, and he'd see neighborhoods reviving. And if he talked with some residents, he would find they feel secure, knowing police are just two minutes away.

Pacoima and the Northeast Valley have suffered from decades of neglect and L.A.'s destructive city policies, but they can rebound with the right investment and leadership from above because of the resilience of the residents. Much of the area is down, but not demoralized.

Let this small study, which will bring together hundreds of local businesses and residents in a public conversation, plant the seeds for the rejuvenation of the entire region.