Where Democratic Convention and Opportunity Meet

Los Angeles and all of Southern California will be presented with an exciting opportunity or a numbing disaster in August when the Democratic Convention meets here.

The event will bring 5,000 convention delegates to town and 15,000 journalists from around the world. It will be Showcase time, and if Los Angeles can duplicate the triumph of the 1984 Olympics, then the region will get a long-term lift in tourism and investment by businesses wanting to be here.

But if the convention is not handled well--if transportation for delegates is poor, or if attractions are not well prepared for those 15,000 journalists with microphones and cameras and notebooks, then we’ll be in for a bad time.

If left to their own feeble imaginations, the television networks will troop to what they think they know about Los Angeles. Anchormen will congregate at Florence and Normandie and intone about the riots in 1992 and pan their cameras at the lack of visible rebuilding.

Los Angeles will be condescended to, as so often it is in the national media, as a place of sunshine, show business and cafe latte. Or worse, as a place of traffic gridlock, smog and disorder.

The fact that the city or county or region is a center of renowned universities and international commerce with one of the world’s most vital, vibrant and complex modern economies will be ignored.

Unless. Unless the L.A. Convention 2000 committee--the official host--and the Democratic National Committee and the civic-minded businesspeople who are sponsoring the host committee see to it that preparations are first-rate.

Right now, although no one wants to say discouraging words publicly, that necessary effort is lagging. Mayor Richard Riordan announced last week that he is stepping in to help with convention planning.

The city’s $36-million financial obligation, which is being funded by private groups and individuals, is still $9 million short, Riordan said.

Eli Broad, co-chairman of the Convention 2000 committee and the man responsible, with Riordan, for bringing the convention to Los Angeles, says, “The mayor’s efforts are welcome--in fact they’re overdue.”

The remaining money is not a problem. “It will be raised in 60 to 90 days,” says Broad, the billionaire businessman whose SunAmerica insurance company is now part of American International--a major sponsor of the city’s convention effort.

But questions arise. What are the payoffs from the convention, which will bring a total of 35,000 visitors to town?

Short term, the payoff in hotel and restaurant and other tourist industry revenues, the host committee estimates, will be $150 million to $190 million.

Hotel occupancy will rise a little thanks to the convention, says hospitality consultant Bruce Baltin of PKF Consulting. “But the bigger payoff will come next year and in future years as the city’s exposure on world media brings new tourists.”

Couple tourism with good images of business and industry, and the region could hit it big on the convention.

So it’s smart of the host committee to plan events demonstrating the region’s industrial diversity. Plans are underway to have volunteers ready to help members of all 56 state delegations, once the Democratic National Committee tells Los Angeles which hotels the delegations are staying at.

But more should be done. Los Angeles has more people capable of putting on public spectacles than any place on Earth. Yet it failed to mount a noticeable “millennium” celebration. One reason is that light show experts weren’t signed up to work locally, so they went over to Paris and London and worked for those cities.

This time visitors should be in no doubt that they’re in the capital of the 21st century. They should see the home of the Mars landers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. They should see the sites of advanced scientific work at Caltech, UCLA and all the other universities--including USC, down the block from the convention site.

They should see film studios at work. In fact, the host committee should challenge Disney, Universal and DreamWorks--whose co-founder David Geffen is a co-chair of that committee--to show what they can do. DreamWorks’ Steven Spielberg composed a video presentation for Washington’s “millennium” celebration. He could do something big for Los Angeles.

Eli Broad has an expansive idea for Grand Avenue downtown. He envisions a Los Angeles version of Rome’s landmark stairway. “We could have a ‘Spanish Steps’ from the Department of Water and Power and performing arts center to the library on 5th Street,” he says. It could be a pedestrian-friendly entertainment area for 300,000 to 400,000 people.

A lot of work has to be done. Staples Center, site of the convention, will have its luxury boxes torn out and replaced by studios for media. (The host committee will restore the original seating after the convention.)

Big public events can be risky. San Diego, which hosted the Republican Convention in 1996, is still in lawsuits with the GOP over $5 million in disputed expenses. And, of course, Seattle thought it was going to host a World Trade love-in last November and got something quite different instead.

So security will be abundant and tight--from the Los Angeles Police Department; the U.S. Secret Service; and private firms such as Pasadena-based Inter-Con, whose President, Rick Hernandez, is a host committee co-chair.

What will make the difference between success and failure? A lot of people working together, without regard to ego or politics. When Riordan jumped in last week, a local businessman quipped that “Republicans are helping the Democrats put on a convention.” His reference was to Riordan and to the presumed political affiliation of Philip Anschutz, the Staples co-owner who is donating the arena for the event.

But for Southern California, this event has to be beyond partisanship. As Ronald Reagan used to say, “There’s no end to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

James Flanigan can be reached by e-mail at jim.flanigan@latimes.com.