EDITORIAL PHONY DEBATE HAHN AND PADILLA DUCK THE REAL QUESTIONS FACING CITY GOVERNMENT.

IT'S telling that the first time Mayor James Hahn and City Council President Alex Padilla really get into a public fight, it involves the issue Los Angeles residents care about most: putting more cops on the street.

Yet, when it comes to reining in the waste in City Hall and demanding more productivity out of city bureaucrats, Hahn and Padilla couldn't agree more.

Both are opposed.

When it comes to putting a freeze on the skyrocketing salaries and benefits packages of city workers, there's also no disagreement.

Neither Hahn nor Padilla would dream of it.

And when it comes to hiking trash fees by 66 percent for L.A. residents and cutting back on tree-trimming and other city services, they're in perfect harmony.

Go for it, both say.

Where Hahn and Padilla part company is on the narrow question of whether the City Hall crowd should make some nominal gesture toward improving the quality of life in Los Angeles now - or later.

Chief among those gestures is putting 320 cops on the street - a mere drop in the bucket of L.A.'s needs. Other issues include paving 84 miles of roads, repairing 36 miles of sidewalk and hiring 30 more firefighters.

Hahn, tapping into a heretofore unseen sense of populism, wants to spend the money for all of the above right now, even though potentially staggering budget deficits loom down the road.

Padilla, tapping into a heretofore unseen sense of fiscal responsibility, wants none of those things until the economy recovers.

The council budget committee has voted to postpone, and perhaps scrap, the $69 million in minor improvements Hahn has proposed.

Pointing to the example of the state budget debacle, Padilla warns that Hahn's plan of assuming revenues will miraculously rise, and soon, is too risky. In order to safeguard against future shortfalls, Padilla thinks the city should hold back on Hahn's new expenditures until the economy rebounds.

It's a bogus objection.

Yes, Hahn's budget proposal is unduly rosy. And, yes, Hahn is carefully following Gov. Gray Davis' well-marked path toward fiscal ruin.

But that doesn't bear out Padilla's belief that next year's city budget must exclude the few items that ordinary Angelenos most value.

The dilemma that's divided Hahn and Padilla - more cops or a sane budget policy - is a false one. Los Angeles can and should have both.

The key isn't working out their differences, but revisiting the areas where they're all too quick to agree. City leaders could channel a lot more money into public services, without jeopardizing any budgets, by re- examining the cost of city government.

Rather than putting off vital public expenditures, they should put off further government pay raises that outstrip the rate of inflation.

They should tackle the waste and corruption in City Hall.

And they should lay off legions of useless bureaucrats who do little more than pad the city payroll.

It's time for Hahn and Padilla to put an end to their phony debate, and let the real debate - about overhauling city government - begin.