FilmL.A. seeking renewal of contract for production permits: city calls for candidates to compete with non-profit organization.

FOR the first time, FilmL.A. Inc.--the private non-profit organization that handles film permitting in the city and county of Los Angeles--will be facing some competition.

The city of Los Angeles issued a Request for Information in early August, a preliminary step to see if enough interest existed to formally request bids for the permitting services. The RFI submission period closed Friday and more than 80 responses were received, so city representatives now say they will issue a Request for Proposals for the FilmL.A. contract that expires in June 2008. The RFP will likely be issued by mid-October, and a contract will be awarded six to eight weeks thereafter.

Founded in 1995, FilmL.A. employs more than 90 people and handles virtually all of the film permitting for the city. The non-profit gets about $470,000 a year from the city for film permit coordination, including accounting, collection and reporting services. FilmL.A. also compiles and releases quarterly data on the number of filming days in the county. The non-profit receives the remainder of its $572,000 operating fund from a portion of the permitting fees it collects.

The agency's first three-year contract expired in 1998 and was renewed for 10 years, though city officials opted to seek bids for permitting services in 2004 after a financial scandal at the agency.

'They voted in early 2004 to do the RFP but never got around to doing it at the time; I think they had a lot of bigger things to take care of," said FilmL.A. spokeswoman Donna Wells.

The organization was known as the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. until 2005. The previous year, then-president Cody Cluff was accused of spending $150,000 of EIDC funds for personal use including expenses at strip clubs, sporting events, and donations to his children's school. Cluff eventually pleaded no contest to an embezzlement charge in 2004 and was fined and sentenced to probation.

In the wake of the scandal, EIDC became a non-profit private corporation that served as a contractor to the city and county, and tightened its financial controls and oversight.

FilmL.A. filed its response to the RFI on Aug. 24.

"We are absolutely confident it will show we are more qualified than anyone to do the job we do," Wells said. "Few other non-profit agencies have the infrastructure and connection to the community we have developed over more than a decade."

The responses aren't all from businesses or groups looking to take over the permitting process. Many are simply residents vents, in particular a large group of downtown residents who have invested in newly built high end properties and are not thrilled with the volume of filming that has long taken place downtown.