Riordan Plunges Into Convention Planning

Amid growing uneasiness about the pace of preparation for this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, is aggressively inserting his office into the planning.

In the process, Riordan’s administration is wresting some control away from the Democratic Party and from a local host committee run by several of the mayor’s friends.

Riordan’s move was encouraged by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who recently met with the mayor and emphatically made the point that he could not afford to have anything go wrong with the convention, which promises to place Los Angeles in the national limelight for a week in August. Drawing on her own experience as San Francisco’s mayor when that city hosted the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Feinstein warned Riordan that the only way to ensure the event’s success was to involve himself intimately in the preparations.

In an interview, Riordan voiced pleasure with the progress so far, saying it was going “extremely well, incredibly well.” At the same time, he stressed that in recent days he has begun stepping up his own role and plans to be an increasingly active participant as the convention draws near.

“We realized all along that somewhere along the way I was going to have to rev it up,” Riordan said. “I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible if something goes wrong.”

Although the mayor downplayed any suggestion that he is dissatisfied with the effort so far, others said he has expressed concerns about at least two aspects of the planning: the slow start by the Democratic National Committee, which did not begin assembling a team here until late last year, and the still-unfinished fund-raising by the local host group.

Riordan said Friday that the fund-raising remains about $10 million short of its $33-million goal and added that he is making calls to try to raise the difference. Without naming any names, the mayor said he believed that he already had a commitment for about $1 million.

Leaders of the host committee--which includes some of the mayor’s most devoted and well-heeled supporters--initially had pledged to raise all of their contributions in 1999, a promise partly intended to relieve any anxieties that convention fund-raising would cut into the party’s own efforts on behalf of candidates and causes.

“It’s hard work,” Riordan said of raising money. It’s also relatively unpleasant work, since it involves calling friends and allies and asking for their cash. But it’s an area in which Riordan has long demonstrated his talents, whether raising money for his own electoral campaigns or for his projects, such as last year’s City Charter and school board elections.

Officials from the Democratic National Committee group organizing the convention guardedly welcomed Riordan’s increased activism, saying they have worked well with him in the past and looked forward to his growing role. Officials and members of L.A. Convention 2000, the private host committee charged with raising money for the event, said they are confident that the convention will come off without a hitch and added that they welcome Riordan’s help in ensuring that.

“He’s been there from the beginning,” said billionaire businessman Eli Broad, one of the host committee co-chairmen and a close friend of Riordan. “I’m delighted that he’ll be playing an even bigger role.”

Riordan estimated that so far, about 10% of the planning work has been done through his office. From now until the convention begins, he said he expects his staff to handle about 50% of the work. Riordan said he is able to make that move now because of his suddenly lighter schedule after an extraordinarily busy 1999, in which he spearheaded charter reform, business tax reform and the overthrow of the school board majority, among other things.

With those issues behind him, Riordan said he now has more time to devote to the convention, a signature event that he and others hope will show the world the progress Los Angeles has made since the 1992 riots and Riordan’s election the following year. The convention’s importance as a public relations moment has grown in recent weeks because the city’s millennium celebrations were a flop that invited national ridicule.

On the convention front, Riordan’s increased activity already is apparent.

In addition to discussing the issue last week with Feinstein, he met Friday with Tony Coelho, a top Democratic Party official. Interviewed before that meeting, the mayor said Coelho requested the time, and Riordan said he expected they would discuss the convention.

In recent days, Riordan and his aides have prodded the host committee to make some decisions about which state delegations will stay in which local hotels and which hotels will host certain special events. Those decisions have ramifications for security and transportation arrangements, for which the city is responsible.

The Democrats are also expected to name at least one and possibly two or three headquarters hotels, which act as central areas for delegates and media members. The host committee earlier this month said it would announce those hotels at a lunch for reporters, but then failed to do so. Lydia Camarillo, who heads the Democratic National Committee’s convention group, said those announcements will be coming soon.

“What we’re waiting on them for is some key decisions,” said Deputy Mayor Jennifer Roth, who oversees financial issues for Riordan and has been assigned to coordinate his office’s convention planning.

Frank Martinez, who ran the city’s Y2K planning, also is moving to the convention effort, Riordan said. Martinez will report to Roth, who reports directly to Riordan.

The mayor’s determination to take on a bigger role in the convention is not without risk. If he takes control of the effort, he also makes himself accountable for its success. And his press for more authority threatens to irritate some of the existing leadership at both the Democratic National Committee and the host committee.

In the interview Friday, Riordan went out of his way to praise those officials.

There is still another possible land mine.

Riordan’s injection into the fund-raising demonstrates his impatience with that effort, which is being run in part by the mayor’s longtime friend and advisor Bill Wardlaw. Riordan and Wardlaw have been at odds in recent weeks, largely because they are backing different candidates for mayor in the next election. Riordan’s new prominence in the convention fund-raising, as well as any suggestion that it reflects his lack of confidence in the host committee or its staff, could exacerbate that tension, which already is a delicate subject in his administration.

Pre-convention jitters at this stage are common, since the gatherings involve thousands of details and are closely scrutinized by the international media.

With such high stakes, mayoral convention takeovers are common. In addition to Feinstein’s experience in 1984, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Jr. was the main planner for that city’s 1996 Democratic Convention, and San Diego Mayor Susan Golding was the key player in organizing her city’s 1996 Republican Convention.

One wrinkle in the coming Los Angeles event, however, is that the mayor here is a Republican, while the convention coming to town is the Democrats’. Riordan has not endorsed a candidate for president and will not do so until after the convention. But he did once host a fund-raiser for George W. Bush.

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Times staff writer James Flanigan contributed to this story.