EDITORIAL COVER-UP OR CLEANUP? LOCAL LEADERS HOPE TO MAKE THE EIDC MESS DISAPPEAR.

AFTER seven years of nonleadership leading to scandal, the executive board of the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. has opted for a course of nonleadership that raises concerns about whether its members are covering up or cleaning up their mess.

What else would you expect of a board dominated by city and county elected officials who created this quasi-public agency to combat runaway film production and then let it run away from their control?

For seven years, the board paid no attention as the EIDC ran its multimillion-dollar operation in a way that Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky charitably likened to a ``mom-and-pop operation.''

All that the EIDC has in common with any mom-and-pop operation worth its salt is that EIDC President Cody Cluff liked to put business expenses on his personal credit card, then seek reimbursement.

That might be amateurish stuff, but it's hardly the worst of the EIDC's offenses - offenses that no credible mom-and-pop operation would even consider.

No mom-and-pop operation would ever maintain a $500,000 expense account for the company's overindulged CEO.

No mom-and-pop operation would do business without some semblance of a coherent budget.

And no mom-and-pop operation includes the city and county's top leaders on its executive board, then funnels tens of thousands of public dollars into those leaders' campaigns.

All these abuses and more occurred for years, with city and county leaders not so much as taking notice, let alone raising objections. They merely cashed the campaign checks, then turned the other way.

It took a criminal investigation from District Attorney Steve Cooley to draw the politicians' attention, and a search of EIDC headquarters and Cluff's homes to produce the facts.

Now the politicians want to bury those facts.

At a long-overdue meeting of the EIDC's board, the assembled leaders voted to bring in the ultimate City Hall insider, former City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie, as a ``consultant'' charged with making the mess disappear. Never mind that Comrie was one of those who signed off on creating the EIDC in the first place. Conflicts of interests aren't the concern, bad P.R. is.

And make no mistake about it, Comrie's job is primarily one of P.R.

Make the scandal disappear. Make some lofty statements about reform. Let the expert step in, so the politicians can run far off and wash their hands of the whole sordid mess.

Mayor James Hahn and City Council President Alex Padilla are so desperate not to get tarred with the scandal that they couldn't even be bothered to come to the meeting, citing previous commitments. Funny, they weren't too busy to solicit checks for their campaigns when the EIDC was giving away public money.

But collecting cash is always easier than accepting responsibility. City and county leaders clearly have little interest in getting to the bottom of the misfeasance bordering on malfeasance at the EIDC.

The district attorney is going to have to do that for them.