Donation Bails Out Convention Committee

The city’s cash-strapped Democratic National Convention host committee was staring at more than $1 million in bills due this week--and not nearly enough money to pay them.

But at the last minute, billionaire investor Ron Burkle agreed Tuesday to make good on a long-standing, $1-million pledge, and the convention-related bills--including $869,000 for production services--were paid on time, said sources familiar with the transaction.

Another flurry of bills requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments is due Friday, but convention organizers insist that those, too, will be paid without delay.

“We have paid every bill on time and we will continue to pay every bill on time,” said Rod O’Connor, chief operating officer for the Democratic National Convention Committee.

Nonetheless, the latest scramble for funds highlighted the sometimes tense relationship between the city’s nonpartisan host committee, which raises money for the convention, and the national committee, which spends it.

“Neither side quite knows if the other side isn’t telling them something,” one inside observer explained.

The host committee is made up of influential and wealthy city leaders, while the convention committee is an arm of the Democratic National Committee, with staffers loyal to Vice President Al Gore and the party.

Adding to the tension is the small amount of public money available to the Los Angeles convention, committee members say. At roughly $7 million, the amount is less than a third of what Philadelphia’s Republican National Convention has gotten, and $2 million of the Los Angeles money won’t be available until after the Aug. 17 close of the convention.

Some of the recent anxiety was created in part by Burkle’s delay in making good on his pledge. By Tuesday, the convention cohost and investor, who made his fortune in the grocery business, had fulfilled the pledge.

“This has not been a process [in which] we’ve been comfortable about money at any point,” said one organizer who asked not to be identified. “We’ve had to raise money in the face of a lot of obstacles.”

But neither the tension nor the financial shuffling will hurt the convention, members of both committees insisted. Construction and related contracts are on schedule and the event will start Aug. 14 as planned.

“Any myths that might be out there that production bills will not be paid and lights will not come on are just that--myths,” said Peter Hidalgo, a spokesman for Mayor Richard Riordan who has been actively involved in raising money for the convention. The mayor is in Philadelphia attending his party’s national convention this week.

Still, host committee President Noelia Rodriguez, who met Monday with convention Chairman Terry McAuliffe to work out money matters, acknowledged that the hand-to-mouth finances are a distraction.

“Ideally at this stage of the game, with two weeks to go, we’d be spending 110% of every waking moment on planning the event and not on planning any fund-raising,” Rodriguez said shortly after the meeting. “But the important thing is that we all are working on this together to put on a successful convention.”

At least one contractor said she had “no concerns whatsoever” about the committee’s ability to pay its bills. Sandra Bartsch of Bartsch and Trotter, which is preparing a $1.5-million media party Aug. 12 for 15,000 journalists descending on Los Angeles, said the committee has met every installment.

Other vendors are not so sure. Some say they are worried that the squabbles will hold up their checks, and those concerns are likely to continue until the curtains rise on the convention.

The host committee is contractually obligated to raise $35.3 million--of which $18 million must be in cash--and to pay for several parties, like the media party, which are not included in that total. Host committee spokesman Ben Austin said Tuesday that the group has raised $48 million, more than any other convention committee in history, and has squeaked past the cash obligation mark.

A majority of what has been raised has been in kind--goods, services or supplies--rather than cash, Austin said.

He said that the financing struggles, while real, are just one of many obstacles the committee must deal with daily and that it has met the challenge.

Although both committees are striving for a successful convention, their differing missions make a certain amount of conflict inevitable, according to their members.

And their relationship, they say, is a lot better than that of the Chicago host committee with the Democratic convention committee in 1996, which disintegrated into angry finger-pointing.

“At this point back then, we weren’t even talking anymore,” one convention committee official recalled.