Last week, Mayor Street, Police Comm-issioner Sylvester Johnson and Department of Human Services Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner held an editorial roundtable with "neighborhood weekly newspapers" at City Hall. They wanted to talk about violence. I did too. So I went, grabbed the half-inch thick stack of supporting documents and statistics waiting on the table and opened these ears wide. Here's what I heard:

Dude, relax.

We don't need no stinkin' National Guard. Crime's actually down! (OK, except for those pesky shootings and homicides; sure, any murder is one too many, but enough about that for now.)

Forget about surrendering civil rights to improve crime fighting. The brutal legacy of the Rizzo-boot '60s renders that idea moot. ("It's dangerous to say to people that you can be searched and seized without probable cause. Some people can do that, but I'm not there," Street said.)

The daily papers are borderline negligent. Seriously! They're keeping track of the body count as if it were the National League wild-card race.

And all these people screaming for more police officers? They ought to stop, too. All the cops in the world ain't gonna do a damn thing to stop a murder inside a house, or a perp focused on puttin' his mark down in the privacy of a bad-neighborhood alley. (Besides, do you know how much it costs per new officer? Well, it's expensive!)

It's time, came the closing argument, for people to put it all in perspective.

"The Police Department is doing a great job," Street said. "Slow down just a little bit. It's unfair not to put a little balance in this."

Street may have a point. People would be wise to focus on prevention and rehabilitation, so it wasn't hard to think some truth was being told.

That yes, we have a violence problem in Philadelphia, but it's bad all over the place.

That manpower isn't the panacea to societal ills infecting entire demographic groups.

But before I could even consider shilling for Street's perspective — methinks they thought they could find some sympathetic ears in the crowd — word came from state House Speaker John Perzel's re-election dais that he had a "plan to add 1,345 cops to city streets.

"We are here today to send a clear message to the drug-dealing thugs, the illegal gun-pushers and all those responsible for terrorizing our neighbors," the Daily News quoted Perzel saying. "We, the families of Pennsylvania, are taking back our streets."

To which Street spokesman Joe Grace responded, "We'll take a close look at it."

Now let's put that into perspective: Five days after calling for "a little balance," the mayor — who deserves an atta-guy for hosting the roundtable — could already be entertaining a plan to do exactly what he said wasn't necessary. Something he predicted wouldn't slow the Inquirer's inner-city death-count ticker. Something that'll cost the city $30.2 million.

So much for shifting the city's attention toward issues that deserve a full public airing. But during an election year in a nation cloaked in a culture of fear, law-and-order initiatives will abound even, apparently, if officials don't think they'll end up saving a single life.

And that leaves me wondering: What if Street was right? That sinking money into personnel will do nothing but siphon resources from programs that could actually change mind-sets and, ultimately, teach people to place a higher value on human life?

Well, unless a mayor with national-office ambitions picks a fight in which he could be wrongly positioned as pro-crime, we'll never find out. No pun intended, Mr. Mayor, but if you don't stick to your explore-other-options guns, it won't look too cute when people put your legacy into perspective.

Lost in the whole sidewalk-cafe hubbub is the fact that the exemption for taprooms is merely a sham. A couple facts:

To have a Sunday sales license, a corner bar must make more than 30 percent of its loot from food. To be exempt from the smoking ban, they can't make more than 10 percent from nonalcohol-related sales.

So, will tappies be forced to choose between being open for Birds games or letting their patrons light up? Nah, say the supposed hardline pro-banners.

"I wouldn't worry about it," one plugged-in official responded. "They already cook the books to get to 30 percent. They'll just get more creative with it."

Added another, "Don't worry about it. Nobody's going to bother them anyway."

Ah, Philadelphia.

(hickey@citypaper.net)