EDITORIAL HONEYMOON'S OVER COUNCIL, MAYOR BREAK PROMISES TO CHIEF AND THE PUBLIC.

YOU'VE got to feel a little sorry for Bill Bratton.

The celebrity chief is lured to Los Angeles with promises of a blank check to rebuild the Police Department. He's the toast of the town, wined and dined in the best homes and restaurants.

So he brings down crime, reorganizes the LAPD's management, restores cops' morale, goes after the homeless downtown to benefit developers and cracks down on gangs to benefit the neighborhoods. He even pushes hard to fulfill the demands of Mayor James Hahn's federal consent decree to get free of its onerous and often unreasonable conditions.

But when it comes to fulfilling the No. 1 promise made to him and the public, the mayor and the City Council say loud and clear: No more cops.

Welcome to L.A., chief!

On Wednesday, the council - with the mayor's full approval - decided against asking property owners on March 2 to pay $100 a year extra on the average parcel so the city can hire more cops. Maybe in November or the year after; maybe never.

They said it was a case of bad timing, which means their polling data showed just how angry voters are about paying more in taxes to a City Hall that gives away the treasury to consultants, contractors, public employee unions and assorted other special interests while reserving a tidy sum to make sure they maintain their own status as America's highest-paid municipal officials.

It hasn't helped the mayor or council's standing that they repeatedly cut public services while giving employees raises at twice the rate of inflation.

For Bratton, the no-more-cops edict is a bitter pill, just as it is for residents of the San Fernando Valley, who have seen their understaffed police stations raided to fight crime in the inner city, leaving their community the most under-protected area of the city with even fewer cops.

For a year, the council jerked Bratton around over abolishing an insane and pointless burglar-alarm response policy that would have freed up some cops for real police work. Then they left him dangling in the wind over even finding matching dollars to take advantage of federal grants to hire more cops.

Like so much that's broken in Los Angeles, the answer to finding the money to hire cops isn't so hard to figure out: Cut other spending.

That would mean getting rid of deadwood, programs that provide no real benefit to the people, bringing the unions down to earth by negotiating tough contracts that benefit the public and ending the giveaway of public dollars to the culture of insiders who reap contracts worth 100 times their contributions to the politicians' campaign war chests.

If only City Hall played hardball for a year or two, the treasury would be overflowing with enough dollars to hire 1,000, maybe 2,000, more cops, and City Hall's credibility would be high enough that the public might even be willing to cough up the dough for 1,000 or maybe 2,000 more.

But don't hold your breath.

After three years of tough economic times, City Hall still hasn't even got serious about holding down spending. The mayor and council's austerity program amounts to little more than figuring out new ways to cut services to the public.

They'd rather break their word than break City Hall's corrupt culture.