EDITORIAL BUDGET FARCE.

THE charade continues.

With much fanfare, Mayor James Hahn has delivered a veto to the Los Angeles City Council's proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

With equal fanfare, the council - 20 minutes later - overrode the veto, putting an end to one of the most overblown pseudo-dramas in recent city history.

To hear Hahn and council President Alex Padilla go at it, one would think city government is trapped in the ultimate bind, forced to choose between public safety on the one hand and fiscal prudence on the other.

First, there's Hahn, who hopes to stake his re-election campaign on the claim that he rebuilt the Los Angeles Police Department. Hahn wants the city budget to include funds for hiring 320 extra cops.

Then there's Padilla and most members of the council, who have taken a newfound interest in fiscal restraint. They claim the city's economic uncertainty is too great to invest in the new cops now and want to revisit the question again in six months.

What a farce!

Both sides have agreed to hire 400 new cops to keep up with attrition at the LAPD - even though the evidence is less than 200 cops will leave the force in the next 12 months. So the mayor and council have created the biggest City Hall fight in years over what's more like 100 extra cops since they've agreed to hire the 400.

And the city is getting back the services of 210 other cops because the LAPD lost the contract to provide transit police services. So Hahn and his police chief, William Bratton, already have more than the 320 extra cops they need to fulfill their promise to cut crime 25 percent this year - the one the chief has already reneged on.

Besides that, even if the mayor had gotten his way, none of the 320 extra cops would actually be on duty until well into next year because of the time it takes to recruit and train officers. By then, the money might be available.

So why all the heated words and theatrics?

Diversionary tactics.

While Hahn and council thump their chests about principle, they're really playing political head-games with the public.

For starters: The city garbage fee is going up by 66 percent with the full agreement of the mayor and the council.

There's also the size and cost of the city bureaucracy. The mayor and council alike have no interest in seeing the bloated payroll shrink, or slowing down municipal pay raises that have steadily increased at twice the rate of inflation.

The cops are next in line, and they're about to get 4 percent or more plus even more lucrative benefits, even if it means nearly bankrupting the city.

And, of course, none of L.A.'s elected leaders has any objection to plans to cut city services to the public while hiking fees every which way they can - in short, offering less service for more money.

The most controversial elements of the proposed city budget are the very ones city leaders have done their best to avoid discussing. Instead, they've carried on with their phony debate of public safety versus prudent planning - an argument that will cause no real political damage to either side.

No, it's not the council or the mayor who will lose this fight. It's the people of Los Angeles, same as always.