EDITORIAL HIDDEN CHARGES.

ONLY Los Angeles City Hall could be surprised at this late date that the carefully laid plans to inhibit protests at the Democratic National Convention are hopelessly unconstitutional and that it's going to cost a lot of money to preserve the peace.

Only in Los Angeles, with its history of keeping residents as far away as possible from the decision-making process, would the mayor, city attorney and City Council allow the cops to spend 18 months devising a security plan for the DNC that they knew - or should have known - is illegal.

Their motive for creating a ``buffer zone,'' intended to keep protesters out of sight more than a block from the Staples Center, wasn't a sinister attempt to deny First Amendment rights to the righteous and self-righteous. It was simply that it is cheaper to corral protesters than to control them.

And cheap is what Los Angeles City Hall is all about - cheap about services to the public, cheap about protecting the public's rights. Cheap about everything - except the salaries and benefits they pay themselves and their bureaucratic flunkies.

U.S. District Judge Gary Feess needed little time to see through their charade last week, and he ordered the city to come up with new plans for allowing protesters within 100 yards of Staples Center so their message could be heard by the convention delegates.

The judge issued his ruling after the ACLU asked for a temporary injunction to prevent the city and police from implementing their plan for a buffer zone to keep protesters 260 yards away.

Feess also ruled the city's parade permit procedures are unconstitutional because of a requirement that applications be made at least 40 days in advance.

His ruling means it will be more costly to patrol the convention, something that again seemed to surprise and disturb council members, who had no trouble voting to give $4 million to the Democratic National Convention to help them stage their big show in August - despite a prior agreement not to pay to stage the event itself.

``It will require us to have more officers on duty at Staples Center, and there will be higher costs,'' Parks told members of the Budget and Finance and Ad Hoc Committee on the Convention.

A full mobilization of officers assigned to 12-hour shifts will effectively double the size of the force and raise the cost of patrolling the convention to $1.5 million a day.

How will the city pay for it? No doubt the way it pays for everything: at the expense of services to the taxpaying public. Once again, they could trim Fire Department and emergency personnel, cut back on hiring more police, close libraries early and delay long-promised projects, like the building of more libraries and a new police station in the Valley. For sure, there will be no repairs for the crumbling sidewalks of Los Angeles.

Whatever the cost, the council will find the means to make you pay for it.

And since you will be paying the extra millions that inevitably will be spent to throw the Democratic Party a bash in Los Angeles, you have every right to demand to know exactly where every dollar came from.