EDITORIAL HOLLYWOOD'S LATEST DRAMA SCANDAL AND INTRIGUE AT THE EIDC.

IT'S a season of sequels in Hollywood, with new chapters unveiled almost weekly in Tinseltown's latest tawdry tale of decadence, corruption and greed: the Entertainment Industry Development Corp.

In Episode I, we learned that the EIDC - a nonprofit, public corporation dedicated to keeping TV and film productions in Los Angeles - was being used as a piggy bank for its executives and the public officials who sit on its governing board.

The ``nonprofit'' corporation's president, Cody Cluff, was living it up in true Hollywood style with $500,000 in personal expenses for ``business'' purposes like travel, private clubs and big-ticket sporting events.

In a supporting role as ``the mayor,'' James Hahn played the part of the double-dipper, first taking EIDC funds for his mayoral campaign, and then soliciting $10,000 for his anti-San Fernando Valley secession crusade even as he sat on EIDC's executive committee.

The money all came from film and TV production permit fees, money that in the pre-EIDC days would have gone to public coffers.

In Episode II, we encountered a different kind of public betrayal.

In this installment, we learned not only that the EIDC was ripping off the public, but it also was subverting its mission. The corporation, founded to keep the entertainment industry in L.A., was subsidizing efforts to woo the entertainment industry to Pittsburgh.

For mysterious, unseemly reasons, the EIDC top brass decided to channel $10,000 to the Pittsburgh Film Office, sponsoring a fund-raiser that netted the western Pennsylvania outfit $120,000. A few months later, Pittsburgh landed the production of one of the hottest shows on TV, NBC's ``The West Wing.''

Now we have Episode III: ``Incorrigible.''

Caught red-handed in their treacherous schemes, EIDC officials have dipped into the public cash pile once again, this time to pay for their legal defense. The EIDC has hired private attorneys to represent its employees in the ongoing investigation of their malfeasance.

Fortunately, a hero has begun to emerge in this scandalous trilogy: District Attorney Steve Cooley.

Cooley has blown the whistle on the EIDC. He's conducting a criminal investigation. He's using search warrants. He's going after wrongdoing.

And he's sent out a letter to the elected officials on the EIDC's executive board - county supervisors, City Council members and Hahn - warning them that using public funds to pay for criminal lawyers to defend an employee of a public agency is, except in rare situations, illegal.

And so the drama has taken a sharp turn. Previously, politicians tried to wash their hands of the EIDC with their preposterous claim this is all a private deal - like Enron, Worldcom or Tyco International, we presume.

But Cooley has put them on notice that they are going to have to convince a judge of that notion if they keep going down that road. His letter makes the law unmistakably clear. Now it's up to L.A.'s elected officials to decide whether they want to start obeying it.

Stay tuned, this is a Hollywood drama that goes right to the heart of L.A.'s political corruption, so there are many more episodes to come, plus the prospects of reruns in a courtroom.