EDITORIAL SLIGHTLY UNETHICAL.

THANKS to Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla's fast and loose playing with the rules, all Angelenos - those for and against San Fernando Valley secession - are helping to pay for the anti-cityhood campaign.

On Monday, Padilla spoke at a city-organized news conference in Sylmar to announce that City Hall will be replacing millions of garbage cans, something it never could have done if it weren't as big and powerful as it is now. He issued a press release to the same effect through the Department of Public Works.

The message: A vote against secession means losing all the great services, low taxes and efficient government for which L.A. is famous.

Now, as a politician and an American, Padilla is entitled to make whatever outrageous and implausible comments he likes.

But as an elected official nominally beholden to city ethics laws, he is explicitly forbidden from doing so on the public dime.

By using city resources, even small ones, to promote his anti-secession agenda, Padilla is breaking city ethics policies, weak as they are.

But then, he's in good company. City leaders have been using the bureaucracy and taxpayer-funded resources to make the legal and political case against secession from the very beginning.

Why shouldn't they? Given the historical impotence of the city Ethics Commission, they have nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, Padilla can peddle all the garbage he wants, and taxpayers have no choice but to keep on paying for it.