EDITORIAL ZINE'S PARKING PROBLEM COUNCILMAN'S SNIT LEFT ABANDONED VEHICLE OWNERS OFF THE HOOK.

EVERYONE has a horror story to tell: the neighbor's RV that lives out in the street. The junker that never moves from its spot on the corner. The abandoned cars that are magnets for trash, taggers and crime in the neighborhood.

Now, for the first time in two months, the city of Los Angeles is going to do something about abandoned vehicles, towing away any car parked in the same spot for more than 72 hours.

Which is good, but no one should forget why L.A. spent the past two months doing nothing about abandoned vehicles, and who is to blame.

That would be Dennis Zine, the west San Fernando Valley city councilman.

In 2003, when the city was fiddling with its burglar-alarm response policy, Lone Star, a local alarm company, ran ads on trailers mocking the city's position. That threw Zine into a snit, and he ordered that city government take ``all necessary steps, including litigation'' to remove the offending ads.

In short order, city bureaucrats kowtowed to the councilman and seized more than 100 of Lone Star's trailers, sparking a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds. After reviewing the case, a federal judge ruled earlier this year that the city's abandoned-vehicles rules were inconsistent with state law.

City lawmakers had to craft a new law, which took effect Monday. So for the past two months, it's been ``free parking'' for abandoned vehicles in L.A.

Why?

The old law would never have gone to court if it weren't for Zine's fit. And Zine's fit would have been irrelevant if L.A. city government actually worked the way the charter says it should, and council members were merely legislators, not the mini-executives they pretend to be.

It's good that L.A.'s abandoned-vehicle policy has been fixed -- but there's much else that remains broken in City Hall.

A good place to start would be for the hyperactive mayor to put his energy to work telling the bureaucrats they work for him -- not the petty council members.