EDITORIAL : SEISMIC SHOCK A CITY COUNCIL PANEL DECIDES CITY HALL MUST BE SAVED - BUT AT A STIFF COST.

THE Los Angeles City Council's Ad Hoc City Hall Seismic Committee has decided that $222 million is a small price to pay to maintain the council's Ivory Tower, a k a City Hall.

Nevermind that the money would only make the first four floors of the 27-story building safe for occupation. Nevermind that plenty of vacant office space is available downtown for city offices.

It would, of course, be desirable to preserve City Hall. It is a familiar landmark and a lot of people are attached to it. We can take more pride in City Hall as a symbol of L.A. than two other well-known landmarks, the antiquated Memorial Coliseum or the funky Hollywood sign.

But how much nostalgia can the taxpayers afford? How much money should be used for City Hall at a time when the city is cash-poor and up to its eyeballs in unmet needs? We suspect that most taxpayers have other priorities, such as more public safety, better roads, more tree trimming, etc.

The council panel had been deadlocked over the scope of the project since a task force appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan recommended in January that the project be scaled back to a ``bare bones'' $165 million project that would simply provide seismic retrofitting but postpone the upgrade of electrical, plumbing and heating systems.

But in the end, the panel ignored the mayor's task force and voted Monday in favor of the more expensive option. That recommendation will go to the council as a whole for formal action.

To keep that $222 million figure in perspective, it's useful to remember that a $171 million bond issue narrowly rejected by the voters in June 1995 would have paid for four new police stations, including one in the San Fernando Valley. City officials raise questions about their sense of priorities when they talk about spending even more money than what was included in the bond issue to upgrade a palace for politicians and pencil pushers.

As we've stated here before, few would question the symbolic importance of Los Angeles City Hall. But, many would question the wisdom of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a building the value of which is chiefly symbolic - not functional.

Council President John Ferraro, who heads the seismic panel, has maintained City Hall must be saved, at any cost.

But Councilman Hal Bernson makes a compelling case against the retrofit, saying it might be cheaper to construct a new building instead. ``We can rebuild a lot of office space for what we're spending on the retrofit and still not have what we need,'' Bernson said earlier.

Getting less for more seems to be the council's motto. We instead think it's time for council members to explore other options - and find out what their constituents want.