STREET SWEEPING AND ALLEY CLEANING : COMPLAINTS CENTER ON DISPARITIES.

Byline: Beth Barrett Daily News Staff Writer

Hardly anyone thinks the city is clean enough, but for very different reasons.

In the San Fernando Valley, the complaint is that roads aren't swept very often. Roughly 15 percent get brushed up each week compared to about two-thirds in the rest of the city.

In the central city, the complaint is that maintenance crews don't clean up all the junk, litter and debris that regularly piles up in unimproved alleys - failing to get to 40 percent of the alleys, city records show.

More than two decades ago, the city began posting once-weekly street sweeping signs in the downtown and central communities - with the intention of converting the entire city from its once-per-month schedule, said Patrick Howard, director of the Bureau of Street Maintenance.

``It got to about the 25 percent level in the mid-1970s and the city started running out of money,'' he said. ``The program basically ended, with just a small percentage of the Valley in it.''

The program also didn't include much of San Pedro, a community of about 187,000 people living 22 miles from City Hall at the end of a narrow strip of city land, known as the ``shoestring.''

Even within the Valley, street sweeping isn't equitable. While some communities get up to 21 percent of their streets swept each week, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Sylmar and Pacoima in the North Valley get only about 7 percent of their streets swept that often.

Neighborhoods closer to downtown get the majority of their streets swept each week. For instance, every street in Councilman Nate Holden's central district is posted, according to bureau records.

Riordan and the council have agreed in principle to add 450 more miles, most of them in the Valley, over the next few years.

Central residents on the other hand complain that the city has not adequately dealt with one of their biggest problems: illegal dumping in unimproved alleys. While the city cleaned all the Valley's 500 cluttered alleys last year, it got to just 60 percent or about 2,700 of those in the rest of the city.

``We get dumping from all over the city every night,'' said Juanita Tate, executive director of the non-profit Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles. ``We got earthquake trash, too; lots of brick and mortar.''

Illegal dumping has an effect similar to the aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake - which drew about $231 million in federal cleanup funds and another $200,000 in city money - many residents say, because left untackled it demoralizes neighborhoods and encourages more desecration.

City street maintenance officials said $4 million was budgeted for the program last year, most of which was spent to pick up 54,000 tons of junk and trash in the central city and 5,000 tons in the Valley.

The Mayor's Office last month formed an illegal dumping task force, which will add 14 additional workers to public works at a cost of about $3 million to expand cleanup efforts.

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Photo: Juanita Tate of Concerned Citizens of South CentralLos Angeles wants to get housing like this in an area that is fighting for cleanups.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News