EDITORIAL STRIKE TWO STEIN FUMBLES SECOND CHANCE AS HEAD OF AIRPORT COMMISSION.

THERE won't be many tears shed for Ted Stein, who was, until his resignation Tuesday, president of the Los Angeles Airport Commission.

A consummate City Hall insider who served in high-powered positions under three mayors, Stein mastered City Hall's political culture. His aggressive style pushed bureaucrats and contributors to do his bidding, creating many enemies and excesses.

Under Mayor Richard Riordan, Stein, as Airport Commission president, got swept up in the investigations of Clinton administration wrongdoing by hiring Whitewater figure Webster Hubbell on his own say-so to try to squeeze more than $50 million out of the federal government. It got him a federal grand jury subpoena, fueled James Hahn's 1997 campaign against him for city attorney and played a role in his departure from the Airport Commission.

Given a second chance at the job by Hahn, his enemy-turned-friend four years later, Stein has once again become embroiled in controversy and investigations.

What's surprising is that it took so long for him to resign, given the damage that the allegations against him have caused Hahn.

It's no secret that in his panic to raise millions of dollars to crush the San Fernando Valley secession movement, Hahn turned to Stein, an Encino resident, to strong-arm potential donors for as much cash as he could.

Whether Stein went too far and coerced contractors by making awarding of contracts contingent on contributing is now the subject of a grand jury investigation. He has denied wrongdoing and in his resignation statement Tuesday denounced the accusations against him as false, mean-spirited and politically motivated.

Still, Stein's heavy-handedness in the dual role of political operative and policy-maker has raised questions.

Officials of URS Corp., a large San Francisco firm, reportedly told investigators that they were solicited to donate to the anti-secession campaign or face losing a contract.

Stein's Airport Commission hired scandal-plagued Tutor-Saliba to upgrade the Van Nuys FlyAway terminal, and by all accounts, the company's doing a terrible job. Why did Tutor-Saliba get the contract? It's hard to say, but surely the $100,000 it gave to fight secession didn't hurt.

And Hahn's dubious plan for upgrading Los Angeles International Airport, which would cost a staggering $9.1 billion and benefit no one but the contractors and unions that do the work, looks like one more example of government by special interests.

With several City Council members calling for Stein to step down, Hahn sees his re-election campaign shadowed by the taint of corruption, so he first unloaded Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards, who played a key role in raising money and overseeing the airports, harbor and Department of Water and Power.

And now Stein, the loyal soldier, has fallen on his sword.

But questions about the Hahn administration's ethical failings won't end with his departure any more than with Edwards' or the mayor's belated embrace of fund-raising reforms.

Pay-to-play has never been a one-man game at City Hall, and the investigations and reform efforts must continue whether or not criminal wrongdoing is proved.

Ted Stein is gone, but City Hall's ethical failings remain.