EDITORIAL TOUGH SELL VILLARAIGOSA'S TRASH-FEE PLAN RAISES CONCERNS.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is going to have a tough time convincing homeowners in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in the city that more than doubling trash-collection fees is a good idea.

For decades, free trash collection was a sacred cow in Los Angeles - the one benefit ordinary people got while city officials and their pals looted the treasury.

Streets, sidewalks and sewers were allowed to rot and police services to deteriorate even as city employees, developers and contractors got rich.

Then, at the first sign reform was taking hold, City Hall imposed a small "equipment" charge for the new trash cans for recycling. Next, officials raised the fee sharply. And now the mayor wants to jack up the $11-a-month fee by $17 over four years.

Villaraigosa swears every cent raised will go for the one thing just about everybody wants: more cops; 1,000 more.

But even this popular mayor is going to have a tough time convincing the Valley.

Look at it this way: More than half of those Valley residents voted to secede from the city. The primary reason was that for all the tax revenue the middle-class Valley sent to City Hall, it received a disproportionately low share of services. To many, it seemed like all the Valley got out of the deal was "free" trash hauling.

Now Villaraigosa wants to take that away and make homeowners pay dearly for hauling away their trash.

He swears he's going to resist city unions' demands for whopping pay increases. He insists he's going to be a fiscal conservative, demand efficiency and accountability throughout City Hall and deliver "a more responsive government." And he promises that the Valley will get a fair share of the extra cops, especially in the higher crime areas.

At the moment, Villaraigosa offers no guarantee other than his word. That's not good enough, because political promises too often are broken, and there are plenty of people who have access to the ultimate $127.5 million siphoned into the general fund. Most notably, the 15 members of the City Council.

If this plan seems terribly familiar, that's because it is. Three years ago, Mayor James Hahn proposed raising the trash fee from $6 to $11 a month to hire 320 new cops. After a protracted fight, the full council soundly rejected Hahn's plan. But members kept that $5-a-month fee hike all the same, and squandered it in their usual manner.

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton makes a strong case for more cops and the need for a dedicated revenue stream to get them. Crime is down and his credibility is up, so he's worth listening to.

The problem is City Hall has betrayed the people time and again. The same people who have thrived at the public trough for so long are circling City Hall again.

So for the mayor to even stand a chance for serious consideration of his plan, he needs to provide firm benchmarks on city spending, on employee salary and benefits costs, on adding officers. And he needs to firm up his commitment to end the use of Sunshine Canyon Landfill and make every community, including downtown, pay its fair share for city services.

Without those guarantees, it will be a tough sell indeed.