EDITORIAL : THE ZERO KIDS.

CITY Hall just can't get enough of kicking the hard-working parents in the northeast San Fernando Valley by denying them desperately needed street repairs, new traffic lights, police patrols and blight removal.

Now the downtown politicians are going after the Valley's hardscrabble kids.

Instead of giving them a helping hand, the City Council has sent them a harsh message about life in the big city: You don't count.

They are the zero kids.

Unseen and unheard from unless they are one side or the other of a gang shooting, the kids of Pacoima routinely are excluded from city-sponsored programs designed to give them something to do after school - athletic competition, study halls or jobs - instead of joining gangs.

The city could have done something for the kids of Pacoima and the Northeast Valley by including those communities in an application for a portion of a $48 million federal grant. But it didn't ask for a penny for Pacoima, as the Daily News reported Saturday. Watts and East Los Angeles apparently will split whatever grant money is awarded to L.A. while Pacoima, the only other area of the city that qualified for the funds, will get zip.

The funds, which were promoted by President Clinton when he visited Watts a few weeks ago, would go for job training and programs to keep kids in school.

How could this happen?

Where is the outrage from Pacoima's resident councilman and native son, Alex Padilla?

The application got the City Council's unanimous approval, with nary a peep of objection from Padilla, who explained away his silence by saying ``grandstanding is not my style.''

This is not grandstanding by any standard. Standing up and informing the City Council that there is a great need for the federally funded programs in Pacoima is what any intelligent, aggressive representative would do.

When Padilla said he heard of the slight, he picked up the phone and called the department in a bid to amend the application before the Sept. 30 deadline.

``It's not over,'' Padilla said.

In the meantime, the kids of Pacoima are getting a lesson in city politics that their parents and everyone else in the Valley already knows: From City Hall, the view of L.A. does not include the Valley.

Hopefully, Padilla will not sit idly on the council floor anymore. This could be a costly lesson at the expense of the kids of Pacoima. It's only their futures that are hanging in balance.

Padilla and the six other Valley council members should do what they can to amend the application to include Pacoima.

If City Hall wants to quell the secession movement, it has to start making decisions based on what's good for the entire city, not just what's good for the city south of Mulholland Boulevard.