EDITORIAL HAHN GETS A D.

IN the aftermath of the awful tragedies of Sept. 11, Mayor James Hahn had the chance to show real leadership.

The mayor, fresh from a Labor Day vacation in Hawaii, was in Washington, D.C., on a lobbying visit when catastrophe struck and left him stranded there for two days.

When he returned, he found a city whose people were fighting through the paralysis of their shock and fear to line up at blood banks, give generously to aid efforts, and pour out their hearts at vigils and prayer services.

Los Angeles had become a city united around the nation's flag, its divisions buried in an outpouring of patriotism unparalleled in our time.

But instead of seizing the moment, the mayor offered general reassurances that all would somehow be well and got down to his real business of paying off his political debts.

Hahn squandered a creative opportunity to think big and stand tall, to brush aside special interests and convert the unity of the city's people into concrete action that served the general good.

What he offered instead was a payoff to the Police Protective League for its political support that helped him get elected. He launched an aggressive campaign to ramrod through a compressed work schedule for rank-and-file officers with the promise of higher wages and improved benefits as soon as possible.

He asked nothing in return, not even that the PPL call off its holy war against Chief Bernard C. Parks, a longtime opponent of the shortened work week, and his command staff. And other than a vague hope that it might slow the flow of officers out of the department, he offered nothing but the possibility that if a three- or four-day week didn't work, he'd try something else.

For that, he gets a D on his monthly report card, following a D and a B in his first two months in office.

After 10 years of scandal and demoralization, appeasement of long- standing union goals is hardly the answer to restoring the LAPD's pride and engendering community support.

What ails the LAPD is not that cops, like most other people, have to work five days a week. It's the entire culture built up over 50 years: a top brass and a rank-and-file that can't get along, a dysfunctional discipline system that keeps officers from doing their jobs and a code of silence that protects bad cops who discredit the entire department.

If Hahn were sincere about turning around the LAPD, he would have seized the opportunity to take a comprehensive - and not a piecemeal - approach to reform.

The timing couldn't be better, with the public united and respect for police officers on the rise, thanks to the efforts of the NYPD.

Instead, he zeroed in on the workweek, proving that even in times of grief and tragedy, politics still reign at City Hall.

Rather than wait for a City Council-commissioned workweek study due in November, Hahn sent his proposal to his hand-picked Police Commission, which promptly rubber-stamped it without serious consideration.

Only San Fernando Valley business and civic leader Bert Boeckmann, a long-time police commissioner, voted no.

So the mayor's major ``accomplishment'' for the month of September is an ill-considered, meaningless and possibly dangerous schedule change. He insulted the City Council and blew a golden opportunity to rally the people of the city behind solutions to the many serious problems facing Los Angeles.

He could have called top LAPD and union leaders together to hammer out a real truce and an agenda to move forward.

He could have called a summit meeting with secession leaders and responded to their grievances to avoid a potentially destructive fight.

He could have called top officials together and come up with a real plan to deal with the threat of terrorism in Los Angeles.

He could have looked at the economic crisis looming within months and called business and union leaders together to come up with a strategy to keep the city afloat and people in their jobs.

Instead he earned an A in the school of politics-as-usual and nearly flunked his class in leadership.

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L.A. MAYOR'S MONTHLY REPORT CARD

This month's overall grade: D