L.A. Delivers Convention Pitch

Los Angeles officials submitted their bid Tuesday for the 2000 Democratic National Convention, pledging $35.3 million in cash and services in return for an event that would crown the city’s new sports arena and offer Democrats a toehold in a state they cannot afford to lose.

After a literal red-carpet welcome, the Democratic site selection committee was given CD-ROMs that contained Los Angeles’ 96-page proposal on such issues as hotels, media logistics and labor relations. Under that plan, a private group known as LA2000 would be responsible for most local costs for the convention, but the city would chip in security and transportation services valued at about $6 million plus free space in its convention center downtown.

The wooing had its impact. As they toured the convention center and heard construction plans for the adjacent Staples Center arena, some visiting delegates seemed impressed.

“They haven’t missed a beat,” said Ron Sims, a committee member from Seattle. He and other site selection committee members will make their recommendation on Nov. 12.

That will be reviewed by the Democratic National Committee. Vice President Al Gore, the party’s senior official once President Clinton completes his tenure, is expected to make the final call.

At stake is the prestige that such a convention would bring, along with the about $137 million that 30,000 anticipated visitors are expected to add to the local economy. So it is not surprising that six other cities are making bids for the convention and that host cities in the past have offered strong financial incentives.

Arriving at the convention center for breakfast, 52 members of the Democratic Party committee were greeted by a trumpet fanfare and a collection of the city’s top brass, including Mayor Richard Riordan, City Council President John Ferraro, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, SunAmerica chairman Eli Broad and lawyer Bill Wardlaw.

After warning the delegates, the Los Angeles group exploded a bank of red, white and blue balloons with a deafening boom and then everyone marched to an elegant breakfast in a downstairs dining room, where a woman dressed in angel’s robes and wings descended from the ceiling as part of the entertainment. Riordan, who abandoned his prepared remarks, gushingly described the residents of Los Angeles as the “most wonderful people on the planet Earth.”

The delegates then officially received the bid, delivered to them by a cadre of gaudily dressed angels.

Modeled after the private organization that spearheaded the 1984 Summer Olympics, the LA2000 convention campaign is being chaired by Wardlaw, Broad and DreamWorks SKG co-founder David Geffen.

That group would take full financial responsibility for the effort, but it would get the benefit of substantial contributions of city services, principally in the form of police protection, transportation and donation of city space at the convention center next door to the privately owned Staples Center, where the convention itself would be held.

Although officials could not provide a precise number for the value of those public contributions, the event’s security budget is estimated at $4 million and transportation at $2.5 million. In addition, the bid estimates the value of the convention complex--including Staples and the convention center--at more than $12 million. The complex would be provided for free to the Democratic National Committee for the length of the convention.

In fact, the new arena, scheduled to open in fall of 1999, offered to close down for two months before the convention so the Democrats could get it ready.

“I’d be less than candid with you if I said the presentations were, well, impressive is an understatement,” said James King from Connecticut. “You’ve got real pros here.”

Others cities in the running include Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans, Denver and Miami, but many observers now give Los Angeles the upper hand in securing the event. In part, Los Angeles’ improving prospects are based on a poor showing by Philadelphia, which greeted the visiting delegation with a transit strike and caused the committee members to turn right around and leave.

As they weigh Los Angeles, however, some committee members arrived with concerns about the city’s readiness, particularly when it comes to the center that would host the convention.

Staples Center is advertised as one of the finest of its kind, but at the moment, it’s a construction site in downtown, walls beginning to emerge from a crater, but no place for a picnic much less a national convention.

Staples Center President Tim Leiweke addressed the issue head-on.

Officials in other cities will suggest that there are doubts about whether Staples can be ready in time, Leiweke said. “They’re Republicans,” he said, drawing a laugh.

“That’s absolute poppycock,” Leiweke continued, reminding the visitors that Democrats signed on to the United Center in Chicago when it still was under construction and were rewarded with a successful 1996 convention in a spanking-new facility.

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In addition, Leiweke noted that the Staples Center is slated to host not one but three sports teams before the Democrats are scheduled to arrive. In fact, Staples General Manager Bobby Goldwater, who hosted three conventions as the head of New York’s Madison Square Garden before recently being lured to Los Angeles, gave each committee member a ticket to the Lakers’ home opener in 1999, evidence that there will be a center to visit months before the Democrats need it to be ready for them.

Emphasizing that point, Leiweke asked former Los Angeles Laker Elgin Baylor, now an executive with the Clippers, to join him on stage.

“Do you think I would even think of delaying the building when you look at what he would do to me?” Leiweke asked as Baylor towered over him.

Speaker after speaker hammered the issue of Staples’ desire to kick off the new millennium with the Democratic Party, and Leiweke went so far as to include his home telephone number in the packet of material given to each delegate. “Use it,” he said. “Call me.”

And arena officials also used the occasion to boast about the building they will soon occupy. According to Staples officials, their center will have more suites than any such facility in the country except Chicago’s United Center, and will be bigger than any convention hall other than that center. In addition, Democrats being Democrats, they were heartened to hear that it is being built by union labor and will be thoroughly accessible to people with disabilities.

Filing out of the room, several of the delegates signaled their approval.

“I’m very impressed with their presentation,” said Bobbie Graves of Little Rock. She and several other delegates said they not only were reassured about the center’s readiness but also encouraged by officials’ commitments to diversity.

“In some of the cities, we had to ask about that,” she said. “They came right out with it.”

George Kirkland, who heads the L.A. Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, said local officials were determined to explain their bid down to hotel rooms, office space and computer ports. “The objective is to walk out of here with every question answered,” he said.

Still, politics will be the ultimate determinant, and the vote that really counts is Gore’s. So this week’s events, while important, will probably pale against the calculus of what the vice president thinks will get him elected president.

There, Los Angeles’s case comes down to California’s 54 electoral votes, and organizers wasted no chance to make that point: Delegates got jerseys with the number 54, they were welcomed to “California, home of 54 electoral votes,” and a summary of the city’s bid is framed around “54 Votes for Los Angeles.”

The delegates caught on soon enough, laughing at each reference to the state’s electoral might and even growing to anticipate the gag.

When a group of young children filed in to sing to the committee members--they selected “California Dreamin’ ” and “Downtown”--one member of the committee yelled out: “Are there 54 children?”

“Remember,” a Staples representative responded, “most of these kids can vote in the 21st century.”