EDITORIAL REFORM IN NAME ONLY CITY HALL WILL NEVER SHAPE UP ON ITS OWN.

AT long last, something called ``campaign finance reform'' appears to be on its way from L.A. City Hall.

Of course, that something bears little resemblance to some of the dozens of reforms proposed in August 2001 by the city Ethics Commission. In the intervening 17 months, thanks to the diligent tinkering of a City Council panel, it's morphed into something entirely different.

Back then, the Ethics Commission recommended a package of 60 reforms that would, among other things, regulate the flow of independent expenditures into city campaigns.

But the City Council's panel has postponed making a decision on those reforms for another day.

Back then, the Ethics Commission proposed putting strict limits on the influence of lobbyists, barring elected officials from acting on matters in which they have been contacted by lobbyists who were either recently on their payroll or who raised more than $1,000 for their campaigns in the last quarter.

But the council panel decided to water that reform down. Now, unless the lobbyist has personally given at least $7,000 or raised $15,000 for the politician in the last year, he or she can bend the politician's ear with impunity.

And by all accounts, that monetary threshold is so high that it will seldom, if ever, affect the course of business downtown.

This is what passes for ``campaign finance reform'' in City Hall, and even then, it's moving forward begrudgingly. It took the council panel nearly a year and a half to pass a single meaningless reform, and there's no telling how much longer it will take to get the approval of the full City Council.

So what does the Ethics Commission think of this mockery of its recommendations?

``This is an incremental step and a positive step in the right direction,'' says commission executive director LeAnn Pelham.

Yawn.

Clearly Pelham and her colleagues on the commission know their place. Their job is to give cover to the City Hall insiders who appoint them, to speak loftily about reform and then wink at abuses and nod at City Hall's intransigence.

They have served their masters well.

Too bad they have miserably failed the people of Los Angeles, whom they are supposed to serve as a watchdog against abuse in City Hall. They have given the politicians a free pass - again - to offer inane posturing as a substitute for genuine reform.

Obviously, genuine reform is never going to come out of City Hall. If it's going to happen at all, it will need to come from the people of Los Angeles through a ballot initiative.

For the activists of the San Fernando Valley, those committed to the fight to clean up L.A., there could be no better way to channel their energies.

If we want to clean up L.A., the sanitation must begin in City Hall, by way of the ballot box.