CODY CLUFF: HONEST JERK AND REAL-LIFE HERO TO ALL.

Byline: KIMIT MUSTON Local View

I am proud to declare that Cody Cluff is my hero. Temporarily. He's been the president of the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation since the city and the county gave birth to that bureaucratic monster back in 1995. Arrogant, confident and politically pliable, answerable to no higher authority, Cody Cluff became an industry demigod. At least in his own mind.

His salary steadily rose until it is now a happy, healthy $200,000 a year - plus a $500,000 expense account, unlimited petty cash, a ``housing allotment'' so he doesn't have to live in a trailer park with all the other $200k lowbrows, membership in golf clubs and in a Beverly Hills cigar club where he can huff and puff with Hollywood big wigs.

But none of that is why I admire Cody Cluff. I'm not even envious of the way he used the EIDC as a dating service. Where your average Joe would send flowers, Cody made a cash donation - of EIDC funds, of course - to the Pittsburgh Film Board, which is run by his girlfriend, Dawn Keezer. And then he used more EIDC money to help set up a national film organization whose primary function seems to have been to get those two crazy kids together for regular romantic weekend conferences. Casanova, eat your heart out.

It's almost as if Cody doesn't work for the EIDC, it's more like the EIDC works for Cody. Admirable, yes, in an arrogant self-centered Hollywood mogul sort of way, but that's not why Cody is my hero. Nor is that why he should be your hero, as well.

Listen, if you are a working stiff who has to sell your self-respect once or twice a day to support your family, if you've ever been demoted or fired in order to cover up your boss' stupidity or paranoia, then Cody Cluff should be your inspiration, a moral lighthouse amid the middle-class morass. Or is that a moral outhouse? It doesn't matter, because Cody Cluff, pompous and pampered though he may be, simply refuses to be fired.

Wow. The last time I saw a guy refuse to give up his desk, they called security. But they're not dragging Cody Cluff out of the building kicking and screaming. Oh, no. Because Cody ain't goin'.

The politicians on the EIDC executive board, many of whom claim that three months ago they didn't even know they were on the board, now consider Cody a political liability. So they voted 8-2 to fire his butt. They tried to be subtle by calling it a ``paid administrative leave,'' but you know how many political liabilities have come back from that purgatory. None. And Cody responded to this challenge with all the audacity of a Zen pickpocket. He told the board, ``You're not the boss of me.''

To which board member and County Supervisor Gloria Molina cried, ``It's an outrage!'' And board member and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel fumed that Cody's defiance was insubordination. Nothing, not even a woman scorned, can equal the indignation of a politician who discovers yet again that the bureaucracy listens to them only out of courtesy.

OK, Cody is being a little more blunt about this than is usual, but there isn't much unusual about what's going on here. The EIDC is just one of dozens of city and county agencies that have operated for decades with limited oversight, ludicrous accountability and functional independence. And then, out of the blue, some politician comes along trying to do a favor for a constituent or a contributor (it doesn't matter which) and issues a direct order and, well, what do you expect the bureaucracy to do?

Last year these same politicians who now want to blame Cody for the EIDC farce approved his EIDC budget, which was less than a paragraph long. They admit they often sent staff to attend board meetings in their place. Less than six months ago some of them were even asking Cody Cluff for campaign donations. And getting it. And now, suddenly, they are Cody's bosses? I don't think so.

Cody Cluff, the man who wouldn't be fired. What an inspiration. What a portrait of defiance. What a jerk. But his petulant defiance has shown the citizens of L.A. the true face of their government: big, blind and impotent. And any man who shows you the truth, however unintentionally, is a hero. At least temporarily.