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Lights, camera, permits

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LAST WEEK’S SHINDIG HERALDING the newly named Film L.A. (formerly the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., or EIDC) had all the touches you’d expect at a Hollywood bash: spotlights, valets, a red carpet and attentive waiters serving blue cosmopolitans in small martini glasses. But that’s where similarities with the old, profligate EIDC end -- or at least that’s the hope. Party frills aside, Film L.A.’s new, sober approach to managing film permitting in Los Angeles appears to be genuine. And that’s a good thing for both local film production and governance.

The EIDC wasn’t just your typical Hollywood spendthrift -- it embodied the worst in studio backscratching and government graft. The body was founded in 1995 as a quasi-independent nonprofit with the exclusive authority from the city to streamline the permitting process for movies, TV shows and commercials wanting to commandeer city streets and buildings for location shoots.

But by 2002, investigations by the district attorney revealed that the EIDC had donated nearly $200,000 to elected officials who happened to sit on the organization’s 50-member board. President Cody Cluff and other staff members spent carloads of cash on lavish dinners and rare bottles of wine, arguing that working with entertainment industry clients necessitated such largesse. (Cluff also used EIDC money to pay for a vacation in the Caribbean.) When KPMG audited the organization in 2003, its accountants found the books so poorly kept that they refused to certify its findings.

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Film L.A. no longer makes political donations and has no elected officials on its board, which includes representatives from the industry, neighborhood groups and labor. Yearly audits are in; travel and entertainment expenses are out; executive committee meeting minutes are published at www.filmla.com. The nonprofit has moved from Hollywood to less-expensive digs downtown, putting it closer to many of the municipal bodies it serves as well as to some of the city’s most popular filming locations.

Not that there isn’t plenty left to fix. The permitting process remains flawed. Film L.A. has tried to beef up its complaints mechanism for city residents, and it says it will soon roll out a new, computerized program to manage the process more smoothly. Better still would be moves to standardize permitting throughout all of Los Angeles County.

A quarter of a million jobs depend on keeping film production local. The city needs an honest broker.

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