EDITORIAL MR. POTHOLE HEAVY STORMS EXPOSED HAHN'S FAILURE TO REPAIR CRUMBLING STREETS.

WHETHER or not Mayor James Hahn succeeds in winning re-election in May, he ought to be remembered as Mr. Pothole.

The combination of this year's extreme rains and Hahn's extreme neglect for basic road maintenance has made L.A. Pothole City. More than two-thirds of all city roads - or more than 4,000 miles - now need repair.

City crews have been working diligently to answer repair calls, putting in nearly 10,000 hours of overtime to fill more than 25,000 potholes since Jan. 7. But given the awful condition that city roads were in even before the rains set in, they're facing an overwhelming challenge.

Consider that if Los Angeles were to triple its current funding for road repairs, it would still take city crews 10 years to catch up with just its current backlog.

This, of course, is by no means all Hahn's fault. City streets haven't been properly maintained since 1910. But even if it's a problem Hahn inherited, it's one he's done next to nothing to correct - despite taking ample credit where none is deserved.

So while the mayor boasts that spending for street repairs has doubled under his leadership, what he really means is that the city has ramped up spending only for slurry-sealing - a cheap cover-up of the surface of streets that were actually repaired in recent years and still in decent condition. Full street resurfacing, which is desperately needed for older city streets that, in some instances, have seen no significant repairs in 50 years, continues to go dismally under-funded.

Of the nearly 4,000 poor streets in Los Angeles, nearly 1,000 need complete reconstruction. But fewer than 4 percent of the city's problem streets are slated to be resurfaced under the city's current budget.

And for all of Hahn's boasting, Los Angeles has still not returned to its peak for street resurfacing - 275 miles in the last city budget produced by Mayor Richard Riordan. The average for the decade is much less impressive - about 100 miles a year.

Meanwhile, as the city fixes a few roads here and there, more fall into disrepair. This is a losing battle.

That Hahn considers street repairs a success story of his administration tells us quite a bit about his overall record.

That record surely earns him the title Mr. Pothole, but not in the way it was used to pay homage to his father, longtime county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who made fixing them his No. 1 priority.