EDITORIAL TIME FOR A CHANGE.

THE most critical local race in the March 7 primary is for Los Angeles County district attorney.

With the unfolding Los Angeles Police Department scandal raising questions about the criminal justice system and many questions unanswered about who is responsible for the Belmont Learning Center fiasco, Los Angeles needs a district attorney with political courage, a broad vision of his responsibilities and the highest standards for public officeholders.

Since taking office nearly eight years ago, Gil Garcetti has implemented several notable programs, including the Domestic Violence Division, which investigates physical and sexual abuses against children, and a truancy unit to keep kids in schools.

These are worthy endeavors.

But are they the right priorities, considering the many public scandals that have been uncovered in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Police Department, and the schools?

Has corruption so infected our political system that all layers of government have become suspect? What could be more important than restoring public trust in our institutions?

No other official has the power to ferret out wrongdoing in public office and, through the use of his broad investigative authority and the grand jury, expose corruption and ensure the credibility of our elected officials.

For all the good work that Garcetti, 58, has done, a pattern of passivity also has emerged.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that alone among local and state officials, those elected to county office are exempt from term limits that are proving so beneficial to the public at the city and state levels. To overcome the public's presumption that eight years is long enough for anyone to be in one public office, the officeholder must make a compelling case of extraordinary service.

For district attorney, Los Angeles needs an activist - someone who's not afraid of taking on an entrenched, corrupt political system.

The two candidates challenging Garcetti are Head Deputy District Attorney Steve Cooley, 52, and attorney Barry Groveman, 46, an environmental law specialist who served in the City Attorney's Office and District Attorney's Office. Both would bring new energy to the office.

Cooley points to 26 years in the DA's Office as making him the best-qualified candidate. And as head deputy, he has overseen the Welfare Fraud Division in the DA's Office, which has made unprecedented strides in uncovering abuses by social service recipients.

Cooley, who has been in charge of both the Van Nuys and Antelope Valley offices, expresses a commitment to rooting out corruption and aggressively managing the office.

Groveman is best known for leading a special investigative team that uncovered toxic hazards at Los Angeles Unified School District sites, including the disastrous Belmont.

He played a critical role in exposing serious organizational flaws inside the Los Angeles Unified School District that led to squandering $175 million in public money on the Belmont Learning Center, a project that has been abandoned and never should have been started because of environmental hazards.

His passion and sense of urgency in prosecuting dirty cops, restoring public confidence and establishing guidelines that would prevent future Rampart-like scandals are refreshing.

Public confidence in the criminal justice system will not be restored until the LAPD completes a thorough investigation and until the DA moves vigorously to release people falsely imprisoned and prosecutes crooked cops in a timely manner.

Garcetti, a 31-year veteran, came under intense fire four years ago for presiding over the office that lost the O.J. Simpson murder case. We brushed aside the O.J. case as an isolated problem and endorsed Garcetti for re-election.

But in the last four years, it appears that the Simpson case was symptomatic of larger problems. How could these crooked cops get away with their lies and how could so many people be wrongly sent to jail without the District Attorney's Office suspecting anything was wrong?

And now, in the middle of the scandal, Garcetti only reluctantly shifts toward a crisis mode as the whole nation watches the L.A. police scandal explode. Garcetti makes it clear that he does not see the district attorney's role as being an activist.

Even more troubling is Garcetti's reluctance to accept any responsibility. He says there's no evidence that anyone in his office did anything wrong. How does he know? Because nobody's come forward with any evidence, so there's no need to take the initiative, launch a probe to see if maybe - just maybe - some people should have been more diligent.

Were all his assistants hoodwinked by the cops - on hundreds of cases? Nobody had a clue?

Shouldn't the DA question whether his office could have done something differently that would have spared the city this horrible and expensive embarrassment?

What the District Attorney's Office needs is stronger, more forceful leadership. Garcetti's reluctance to send out forceful signals that public corruption will not be tolerated seems a fatal flaw in a candidate for this sacred office.

After questioning the three candidates at length, we have concluded that Groveman has the clearest vision and the most passionate voice for reforming the DA's Office.

Because people weren't doing their jobs, the Rampart and Belmont scandals could cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. That can't be allowed to happen again.

Garcetti's business-as-usual approach isn't good enough. The public deserves - and, we think, should demand - better.

Consequently, the Daily News endorses Barry Groveman for district attorney. It's time to infuse the DA's Office with some desperately needed energy for a new century.