LIGHTS, CAMERA, ASSESSMENT: HOLLYWOOD RATIONALE OF TAX IS LIKE `HUDSON HAWK' MEETS `VAMPIRE COP'.

Byline: Joel Fox

THE movie business is in trouble. In this company town, people are saying it's OK to forgo movies so government can grow. Listen to the rhetoric: The assessment for the Los Angeles County parks on Tuesday's ballot - Proposition A - is worth the six or seven bucks a year - it's only the price of a movie.

When the L.A. Community College District attempted to levy a $12 yearly assessment on homeowners, one college trustee suggested that's equal to a movie and a popcorn. Not much of a sacrifice. Heck, it's only a movie.

Movies are a new currency to buy more government services. One movie ticket doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice, and maybe it's not. But everything adds up, even movie tickets. Take for example the county park measure. It'll cost you one movie ticket annually. This measure is designed to bring in $319 million over a 20-year period. That one movie ticket must be sacrificed by 45.5 million moviegoers to reach that amount of money.

Those total dollars are equivalent to the budgets of, say, six movies. That means over the life of this 20-year tax, maybe six movies won't be made. And, at one movie ticket a year, the county park measure is the smallest of all tax measures on the Los Angeles ballot.

If all tax measures on this November's ballot pass, we're not talking about six movies not being made, we're talking about over 100 movies, if we use the measure supporters of tax increases seem to favor. That's enough to throw a lot of movie producers, actors, craftsmen, accountants and artists out of work.

This is not to say that these taxes should be rejected to save the movie industry. Life doesn't work exactly this way. Taxes are increased all the time without necessarily putting actors on the unemployment line. While entertainment employment increased over the last decade and a half, so did the number of taxes we pay. As long as the economic pie grows, there is money to go around. The key is a growing economy.

So what will the measures on this year's Los Angeles ballot cost us in movie currency?

Proposition A, the county park tax, is a remake. The original Prop. A supported by the same cast of characters, premiered in 1992. That one cost you two movies a year. The remake costs an additional one movie ticket. And, we are still paying those two movies annually for the 1992 version. It's on your property tax bill.

Just as Hollywood releases movies with similar themes at the same time, our local politicians have managed to produce similar ballot measures.

On this ballot, besides the county park measure is Proposition K, a city park district assessment that deals with some of the same park projects as the county proposal. If passed, this measure will cost you two movies and a popcorn, or four movie ducats if you take in a matinee. You'll have to decide if you want to support similar shows.

And there is a third ballot number that is also being marketed as a recreational romp. That's the aforementioned L.A. Community College assessment, Proposition AA, the cost of a movie and a popcorn. It is designed to improve landscaping and lighting on the campuses, making them as attractive as parks, we are told. If you want all three ``park'' measures, be prepared to sacrifice four movies and two popcorns - the large size, naturally.