EDITORIAL EIDC RIP-OFF CODY CLUFF'S PRIVATE EXCESS COMES AT A VERY PUBLIC PRICE.THE price tag for Cody Cluff's personal excess just keeps rising. Although the EIDC's purpose is to keep TV and film production in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , during Cluff's seven years as president its primary function seems to have been enriching Cluff. Cluff resigned under pressure and with a $300,000 golden parachute golden parachute, a contract given to top executives of a corporation to provide benefits in case of job loss due to a takeover by another firm or a merger. The unusually generous benefits may include substantial severance pay, a one-time bonus payment when in December, but the public is still paying for his failed leadership. As EIDC president, Cluff spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on sporting events, fancy dinners and private clubs. He spent thousands more on an apparent girlfriend in Pittsburgh, pouring EIDC money into her film office, even though it directly competed with the EIDC by luring TV and film production into western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area of about 2.4 million people, and is the cultural center for Western Pennsylvania. . All along, the elected officials who sit on the EIDC's governing board Noun 1. governing board - a board that manages the affairs of an institution board - a committee having supervisory powers; "the board has seven members" turned a blind eye to Cluff's dealings but happily collected the contributions he made to their campaigns out of the EIDC treasury. City Controller Laura Chick, who has been auditing the quasi-public corporation Quasi-public corporation A corporation that is operated privately, but is supported by the government in its operations and that often traded publicly. quasi-public corporation , says the EIDC's records are so confusing and incomplete that it's hard to determine how much money it spent, and on what. What is clear, though, is that city and county taxpayers are likely to end up paying for Cluff's extravagance Extravagance Bovary, Emma spends money recklessly on jewelry and clothes. [Fr. Lit.: Madame Bovary, Magill I, 539–541] Cleopatra’s pearl dissolved in acid to symbolize luxury. [Rom. Hist.: Jobes, 348] . The EIDC, which processes and sells permits to studios shooting in L.A., is required to pay the county roughly $150,000 and the city $3 million each year. But according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Chick, the agency seems to have rung up such a large deficit that those payments are in jeopardy. Isn't that the way it always is? The EIDC had plenty of money to spend on Cluff's decadent Hollywood lifestyle. It had no shortage of cash during campaign season. It had $300,000 on hand to buy off Cluff when it was clear it couldn't keep him around any longer. It had money for everything, it seems, except for paying its dues to the city and county taxpayers who have underwritten the entire operation. So much for Cluff's long-standing claim that the EIDC, as a ``private'' corporation, was free to spend its funds on political campaigns. The city, which is facing a budget crisis of its own, sure could have used those funds. Too bad Cluff had his own uses for them. And too bad city leaders, fat with EIDC campaign donations, were happy to do nothing as Cluff frittered the taxpayers' money away. |
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