EDITORIAL : SILENT SETTLEMENT.

LOS Angeles City Attorney James Hahn and Councilman Richard Alatorre put on their slippers and tiptoed through settlement discussions in a fatal police shooting case, trying not to make a noise as they worked out a $250,000 deal to end the lawsuit.

It didn't matter to them that a police panel found the shooting justified. It didn't matter to them that the judge who approved the agreement saw the deal and the way it was structured as an attempt to keep a lid on the case, in which an off-duty Los Angeles cop was shot to death in 1997 by an undercover LAPD narcotics officer during a confrontation after a traffic dispute in Studio City.

Even though the City Council must approve, in open session, any settlement over $100,000, the payments in this case were doled out to the three plaintiffs so that the two dead officer's two children got $90,000 each and his widow received $70,000. That way the council didn't have to take responsibility for this misguided giveaway of taxpayer money.

We fear this type of deal occurs way too often. The City Attorney's Office, as in this case, tries to find a way to settle a case even though it can win in court just to avoid the chance that it will lose big.

But that's not the end of it. The chairman of the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee has to sign off on settlements under $100,000, and it seems obvious that Alatorre, who has held the post for years, is a rubber stamp. When was the last time he alerted his colleagues and the taxpayers to these deals?

The council ought to change the rules. It's not Monopoly money they are playing with; it's hard-earned cash from its residents and businesses. Those who pay the bills ought to know where their money went and why, whether it's $1 or $100,000 or $100 million.