Democrats, Local Hosts Bicker Over Convention Plans

Despite important evidence of progress, the groups responsible for this summer’s Democratic National Convention are at odds--with national party officials worried about a looming cash shortage and the local group’s leaders irked over what they say are mishandled service contracts.

The two organizations are the Democratic National Convention Committee, which actually will put on the convention, and the local host committee, LA 2000, which is raising the money for the event.

Oddly, the bickering comes as the groups are reaching important milestones. Led by Mayor Richard Riordan, LA 2000 recently passed the $30-million mark in combined cash and in-kind contributions. It continues to lean on Riordan, billionaire Eli Broad and Univision Vice President Henry Cisneros, among others, for fund-raising help.

More than 3,000 people have signed up to volunteer during the convention, delegate and media guides are being written and planning has begun for community events before, during and after the convention, scheduled for Aug. 14-17.

The DNCC, meanwhile, has seen reinforcements arrive from the campaign of Vice President Al Gore, and the candidate himself recently said he is satisfied with the progress toward this summer’s gala. Under the leadership of an experienced hand, Tom Gorman, production of the event is clicking along as the committee prepares to take over Staples Center in July. Meanwhile, a host of initiatives--from statewide community outreach that has included town hall meetings in every California Assembly district to technology planning that is exploring ways to take full advantage of the Internet’s ability to broaden participation in the convention--are off and running.

But there also are brewing troubles that, if not fixed, could raise serious problems for an event that civic leaders consider an important opportunity for Los Angeles to advertise itself to the world.

The host committee recently has raked in millions of dollars worth of donations, but the DNCC complains that it’s $6.8 million short of hard cash, and that, unless it gets some soon, key work could start backing up.

One key nuance of that arrangement is that the host committee has not one but three fund-raising requirements. It must collect $35.3 million in combined cash and in-kind contributions. Of that, however, at least $18 million must be in cash, and it’s that amount that’s short. Finally, the host committee has responsibility for other events, including a media gala, a community party and some intellectual and cultural events during and around the convention. Their cost is not included in the $35.3 million.

“The total is well above the $35.3 million that we were led to believe,” Riordan said last week. “If it was just the $35.3 [million], we would clearly be able to get there. We’re still going to get there, but it’s going to be a lot of hard work.”

So concerned has the DNCC become that it reached out to Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Party’s most proficient fund-raiser, in the hope that he can bail out the local effort. McAuliffe already was considering coming on board to help the host committee raise its remaining cash when former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, at that time the convention chairman, was tapped to head the Los Angeles Unified School District. That left the chairmanship vacant, and McAuliffe now will fill that post. He will help on the money side, officials say, but also will lead the broader effort, including such concerns as technology, transportation, security and delegate comfort.

Riordan, whose work has helped jump-start the host committee’s fund-raising in recent months, welcomed McAuliffe’s assistance and downplayed any suggestion that money has slowed.

“It’s a tough road every day, including today,” Riordan said Thursday during a short break from his fund-raising calls. “But it’s going well. . . . Terry McAuliffe is going to come out here and help us close the deal.”

Riordan said McAuliffe would help in important ways, but stressed that his entry into the local fray does not represent a vote of no confidence in the current effort.

“That would be like criticizing the Dodgers if they went out and got Sammy Sosa,” Riordan said.

Still, others say tensions between the host committee and DNCC are pronounced, flaring regularly over issues such as contracts, schedules and money.

One recent example of the kind of misunderstanding that has arisen in recent weeks--and of the pivotal distinction between cash and in-kind contributions--involves the city’s Department of Water and Power.

Host committee leaders had hoped the DWP would donate electrical service and other power needs to the convention, allowing the host group to check that item off its contract with the DNCC without having to raise cash to pay for it. In return, the DWP might receive such benefits as signs advertising its contribution, a valuable perk for an agency preparing for the possibility of open competition in California’s energy market.

For their part, however, DNCC officials were bent on speed. They wanted to sign a contract for their power needs quickly because allowing that issue to linger might delay other important parts of their work. With just about 70 days until the convention opens Aug. 14, they checked out the DWP but then went ahead and hired their own firm.

That pushed the project forward but meant that about $500,000 of potential in-kind contributions from the DWP were lost. That deepened the fund-raising anxieties at the host committee and strained relations between the two groups.

Noelia Rodriguez, the top official at the host committee, declined to discuss the DWP flap. She acknowledged that there have been differences on contracts and other issues, but said she thinks she and her counterparts are working well together in most respects.

“We all agree on what needs to be done,” said Rodriguez, who is on leave from Riordan’s staff and enjoys the mayor’s confidence. “It’s the path to the destination that there’s sometimes discussion about. But even when we disagree, it’s honest disagreement.”

In part, the tension is a natural outgrowth of the strange arrangement between the two organizations. The host committee’s job is to raise money while the DNCC’s is to spend it. As a result, the DNCC’s goal is speed and precision; the host committee’s is frugality.

While both need a successful convention, they approach it from such different vantage points that a certain amount of conflict is inevitable. At past conventions--Chicago in 1996, for instance--relations between the two groups disintegrated into finger-pointing and stony silence.

And although officials acknowledge differences, all of them--from both the host committee and the DNCC--stress that they’re nowhere near as bad as in 1996.

“The host committee has been working very hard to raise money and to be able to move the money,” said Rod O’Connor, chief operating officer of the DNCC. “We’re confident that the host committee is going to meet its obligations.”

What’s more, O’Connor noted, there are still two months to go--plenty of time to iron out problems and produce a memorable event.

“The Democratic National Committee and the host committee are well on their way to a great convention this August,” he said. “The only thing people will remember about June is that the Lakers won a national championship.”