Democrats’ L.A. Convention Plans in Need of a Nudge

Political agendas and personal conflicts have conspired to delay the planning of next year’s Democratic National Convention, a signature moment for Los Angeles that is being overseen by men so used to having their own ways that President Clinton himself has been called upon to prod them into working together.

There are still months to go before the convention is scheduled to open in downtown Los Angeles. But the Democrats’ quadrennial affair is a massive undertaking, requiring everything from state-of-the-art electronics to affordable hotel rooms, from efficient transportation to flawless security. As a result, every moment counts, and some of those close to the effort acknowledge that they are six to 10 months behind where the organizers of the 1996 Chicago convention were at this point in their planning.

Critics say the issues start at the top, with the convention’s four local co-hosts, billionaires Eli Broad, David Geffen and Ronald Burkle and lawyer/investment banker Bill Wardlaw. All four are major local players, but they occasionally argue, and recently some of them--most notably Geffen and Burkle--have been conspicuously absent from the day-to-day convention planning.

That has created headaches for some of the planners, and one result is that Clinton intends to call each of the four this week, in part to thank them for their work so far and in part to remind them that much is left to be done.

A gentle nudge from the leader of the free world may be enough to keep the quartet in tune.

Roz Wyman, a member of the Democratic National Convention executive committee and a member of the site selection panel that chose Los Angeles, said she believes it is immaterial whether the four main co-hosts are getting along--as long as they’re raising money.

“As long as Burkle’s making his calls, as long as Geffen’s making his calls, we’ll be OK,” Wyman said. “Their job is the simplest of all: to make calls and raise money.”

Conflicts between the co-hosts, however, aren’t the only potential troubles for the convention.

For instance, the hunt is on for local hotel rooms to house thousands of delegates and others expected to stream into town for the event. That search is complicated by one of the Democratic Party’s self-imposed limits: an aversion to booking rooms in nonunion hotels. Although the party does not prohibit delegates from staying in nonunion accommodations, it discourages the practice, and that has made finding enough rooms in appropriate hotels close to downtown a harder challenge than in more centralized, unionized cities such as New York or Chicago.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor is negotiating a contract now with the national committee to ensure that all services--including transportation, hotels, even stage construction--are performed not just by union workers but by local ones. Fabian Nunez, the political director for the local AFL/CIO, said the Democratic National Committee typically uses union labor but sometimes brings in workers from other parts of the country.

“We want to make sure they hire local labor,” Nunez said. “We want everything from signs that are painted, to the way equipment is transported, to sound systems done by union workers.”

The county federation does not buy arguments that there aren’t enough unionized hotels in the Los Angeles area.

“It’s easy to walk down the street from the Staples Center and go to a nonunion hotel, but it’s not the right thing to do,” Nunez said. “The right thing to do is to get in a car and drive a few more miles and stay in a union hotel.”

The convention, to be held Aug. 14-17, will have 4,366 delegates plus 610 alternates, not to mention thousands of other Democrats, including state and local officials and politicians. Thousands of media representatives from around the world also are expected to attend.

It will be the first national political convention in the city in 40 years. The last time a national party held its nominating convention here, John F. Kennedy won the presidential nomination.

Some officials involved in planning the 2000 convention and surrounding festivities concede there have been problems and acknowledge that plans are months behind schedule, but they say there’s still plenty of time to catch up. Others insist there’s no delay at all.

“Let me say flatly that we are not behind schedule,” said Lydia Camarillo, who heads the Democratic National Committee’s convention group.

Camarillo’s own appointment, however, was announced long after officials initially promised to have a top person in place.

The national committee, which puts on the convention while the local hosts raise money for it and for related events, waffled for months on selecting a leader for its team, driven in part by demands from Vice President Al Gore’s office that the choice be not only a woman but also a Latina.

They settled on Camarillo, the executive director of the Southwest Voter Education Project and a highly regarded grass-roots political organizer. But Camarillo recently informed party officials that she is pregnant, which will cause her to be at least briefly sidelined early next year, when her baby is due. Some local leaders were surprised to discover that, and worried that even a short leave on her part could hamper the convention planning.

“I’m a working woman,” she said Tuesday. “I have a wonderful opportunity, to go have a baby. . . . After that, I’m going to come back and work, and work hard.”

Other party and convention leaders also note that Camarillo’s absence will be brief and that she has diligently built a staff prepared to handle it. Her situation, they stress, is one commonly faced and overcome by women in the workplace.

For his part, Broad, the most active of the local leaders in the convention effort, acknowledges that there have been setbacks and frustrations.

The national committee, said Broad, “has been a little slow in appointing people.” And as for his co-chairs, Broad said: “I wish others would take a more active role. But they’re all supportive, and they’ve all pledged to make a contribution.”

But he, like Camarillo, believes the convention will come off without a hitch.

With controversy surrounding the schedule, both the local hosts and the national party have taken to discreet finger-pointing, with each publicly praising the other while privately complaining that the other is not pulling its weight.

Some national Democrats privately grouse that their Los Angeles counterparts are behind on their fund-raising and worry that it may hurt the party’s ability to solicit contributions. Some local officials say that’s not true, and argue that any convention delays are Washington’s fault, since the principal job of the local operation is to do what the national committee tells it to do.

On the issue of fund-raising, Lucy McCoy, the top staff person for the local effort, says her organization is well on its way to completing its task: raising roughly $35 million.

According to McCoy, more than $22 million already has been pledged to the convention, with about $13 million left to raise. That’s a lot of money, but it’s worth putting in some perspective: Three of the convention’s hosts--Burkle, Broad and Geffen--are worth more than a billion dollars each, so $13 million may look like less to them than to most people.

“I’m feeling very positive,” McCoy said this week. “I don’t have any areas of major concern.”

And yet, there are some days when nothing seems to go right. Just a few weeks ago, the local sponsors called a press conference to trumpet their progress in fund-raising and to announce the addition of a genuine celebrity to their team: former Lakers star Magic Johnson. Landing Johnson was considered a special coup because the basketball great also has agreed to host a fund-raising party at his home.

However, en route to the event, Johnson felt a little off. He called in sick.