Boston is expecting big things from the 2004 Democratic National Convention next July and investing big money in those expectations.
Convention President David Passafaro told area business leaders Tuesday that the convention host committee has already spent $650,000 and amassed 5,000 volunteers.
‘Boston will be our stage, and the country will be our audience,’ Passafaro said during a meeting to update businesses on the progress of local and national Democratic National Committee planning. The attention, he said, ‘will make Boston a better place.’
The convention will pump an estimated $150 million into the local economy, and only a small portion will be spent by the Democratic Party.
Media, visitors, hosts and the delegates will generate most of the revenue. Convention planners predict 15,000 members of the media will descend on the city, and a media tour of the convention site last week attracted 500 national reporters.
DNC officials have so far kept tight control of the convention process. The city has created a vendor directory, highlighting local, small, female- and minority-owned businesses. The city has allocated $3.5 million for construction, but firms vying for contracts must be 100 percent union- and minority-owned or affiliated. Of the money the committee has spent, 73 percent has gone to these types of businesses, according to convention spokesman Rod O’Connor.
The Democratic Party is behind Boston in spending, officials said, with only $20,000 in expenditures.
‘The major spending of the convention is really in 2004,’ said convention chair Alice Huffman. But, she assured businesses, ‘You are going to be happy [when] we are here.
‘We don’t have the deep pockets of the other party, but what we earn, we spend,’ she said, referring to the GOP.
More than 30 DNC staff members are working full-time in Boston, many of them since last July, and today officials said that number will grow to about 300 in 2004.
But the partnership between business, government and the Democratic Party is about more than construction, production and entertainment jobs, or even the overwhelming money spent, officials at the meeting said.
‘If we’re successful in showcasing our candidate in Boston, we’ll be showcasing Boston,’ O’Connor said.
The city leadership seems to agree Mayor Thomas Menino has begun several civic improvement projects, most notably planting trees on Boylston Street. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Menino have already announced their intention to use the convention to showcase Boston’s neighborhoods, though how that will happen is still unclear.
O’Connor noted that diminishing television coverage of the convention could be a problem, but promised that the DNC still has some surprises in store, including an undisclosed event at Fenway Park.