Saturday, February 24, 2001 CVB chief agrees to timely exit   By John W. Cox, Staff writer LONG BEACH Linda Howell DiMario, the head of the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau who tendered her resignation last month, has agreed to leave her post as soon as a replacement can be found, bureau Chairman Chris Pook announced Friday. A final candidate for the positions of president and chief executive could be reviewed by the bureau's board of directors as soon as April, according to a press release resulting from recent negotiations between Pook and Howell DiMario. "While Linda has announced her retirement from the bureau effective Sept. 30 of this year, she has graciously agreed to step aside upon the arrival of her successor," Pook wrote in the statement. "The bureau is most grateful," Pook continued, "for her very capable leadership during the last seven-and-a-half years during which the convention center expansion was successfully opened, the hotel occupancies rose from 48 percent to the current 76 percent, average hotel room rates rose steadily each year including 9 percent in calendar year 2000 and the (hotel bed) tax collected by the city of Long Beach rose 200 percent." Howell DiMario could not be reached for comment Friday. Pook's news release follows a Feb. 13 letter to him from Howell DiMario in which she threatened to "seek legal assistance" if the board did not issue a statement to the media defending her from recent allegations about her. In the letter, Howell DiMario insisted that she be able to approve the statement. "As you will see from the press release, we have acquiesced to her request," Pook said in an interview Friday. He declined further comment. Board Vice Chairman Joseph Prevratil said Howell DiMario would probably continue to collect her $136,000-a-year salary through Sept. 30, though he added that the board of directors could decide otherwise. Howell DiMario has held the job since 1993. Recent audits have shown that the bureau claimed undue credit for 50,000 hotel room bookings in 1998 and 1999. In October, the bureau's vice president of sales, Tom Dorsett, left the bureau under a negotiated settlement, the terms of which were not disclosed. "(Howell DiMario's) commitment to this city's tourism industry, its economic development and its citizens is felt and appreciated by many throughout this city," Pook said in the press release. "Her integrity and strength of character has served this bureau well, particularly through the trying times of the last six months."