Democratic convention
The woman in charge details preparations; will hotels be ready?
It was 13 years ago when a south Florida high school senior named Liz Gilbert visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison, got out of the car, briefly soaked up the atmosphere and declared that she was Wisconsin bound.
Gilbert said her mother told her: “You haven’t even seen anything, you haven’t talked to anybody.”
“I said, ‘I just feel it.’ ”
That’s the first impression Gilbert, president of the local organizing committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, will be aiming for next year when the political world comes to Milwaukee from July 13 to 16.
“When you arrive here you feel that you’ve come to a place that is home,” she said.
The one-year countdown to the convention has officially begun.
Convention organizers in Milwaukee are already on the job, coordinating security, planning hotel accommodations and transportation for thousands of delegates and working to get people excited about coming to Milwaukee.
It’s making that first impression, whether at the city’s gateway, Mitchell International Airport, or Fiserv Forum, the convention’s main venue, that drives Gilbert and other organizers.
Mayor Tom Barrett predicted people will be charmed by the city, saying Milwaukee is “not only fighting back but winning.”
“My very candid observation is I think there are so many people — nationally and internationally — when they think of Milwaukee they don’t have a positive impression, they don’t have a negative impression, they have no impression at all,” Barrett said. “And that gives us an opportunity to paint the picture.”
Right now, the canvas may be blank. But it will be filled out over the coming weeks and months.
Gilbert, 30, is charged with making sure up to $70 million is raised,15,000 volunteers are recruited and economic benefits are felt across the city and around the state.
Her counterpart with the Democratic National Convention Committee, Joe Solmonese, is responsible for running the convention itself. Some key decisions have already been made. For example, there will be limits when it comes to fundraising.
“We will not take money from companies that don’t reflect the values of the Democratic Party,” Gilbert said. “We are incredibly committed to that — we are going to be a values-based organization
— and so everything we do will be within that lens.”
She did not provide specifics on which industries will be barred from contributing.
There will also be requirements when it comes to wages.
The local committee has pledged to pay at least $15 an hour for all jobs controlled by the group and, as part of the bidding process, will take into account wages that contractors pay — meaning companies with workers paid at least $15 an hour will be favored to win contracts.
Many other details around the convention are still being finalized.
It could be months before organizers unveil some information, such as how much of downtown Milwaukee will be part of the security zone surrounding the main convention venues, which include Fiserv Forum, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the convention center.
Organizers are hopeful it can be made public by January, leaving residents and workers six months to prepare.
Hotels remain a question
For visitors, the experience may come down to where they spend the night.
Milwaukee had to work hard to convince the Democratic National Committee that it had enough hotels in the region to house everyone. And in the lead up to the convention, hotels will inevitably be a source of conversation and consternation. It’s not just about the number of beds — the distance and drive time to downtown Milwaukee, the type transportation available and perks offered to those outside the heart of the city will all be factors.
Some Milwaukee-area hotels with construction underway will not be open in time for the event. But local organizers say those projects were not included in the 15,000 rooms guaranteed for the convention.
“Yes, we have enough rooms,” said Greg Marcus, chief executive officer and president of Milwaukee-based hotel operator Marcus Corp.
But hotel operators will face the issue of hiring enough people to handle the big surge of business.
“You cannot say to somebody, ‘We’d love for you to come work with us next June and July,’ ” Marcus said. “You have to start thinking about how you put systems in place to get people.”
One solution for Marcus Corp. is that it can shift employees from its properties in other Wisconsin communities and the Chicago area to Milwaukee during the convention.
Greg Hanis, a hotel consultant who operates New Berlin-based Hospitality Marketers Inc., is among those who have questions about where all the guests will be staying.
Hanis counts around 18,000 hotel rooms in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties. And the 15,000-rooms guaranteed for the DNC include 1,000 rooms in college dormitories. Still, July is a peak travel season for the Milwaukee area as visitors come here for summer festivals and other activities.
Hanis said some guests are going to end up with accommodations below their expectations.
“Exactly. That’s going to happen,” Hanis said.
Gilbert said there will be one cluster of hotels used in Madison and potentially another in Lake County, Illinois.
The DNC is expected to unveil where delegations are staying by the end of summer, she said.
Gilbert added, “This is a region where travel time will be measured in minutes and not miles.”
Part of making sure people have a good time involves communication and messaging, she said.
“If you have a longer travel time, well, what are you getting by being maybe a little bit outside the city that others in the city might not get to experience?” Gilbert said.
Gilbert insisted that she’s confident people will fall in love with the city and the state.
“We will be launching a one-year-out Milwaukee hype video, making sure individuals understand all that they have to look forward to when they get here,” Gilbert said.
She said that video, which will be released in the coming days, is part of a digital and social push to start telling Milwaukee’s story to the world.
Organizers also hope to include fun activities for people in the community as well as for convention-goers. For example, the 2016 Democratic National Convention featured 57 fiberglass donkeys representing the delegations, which were painted and placed on display around town.
“I’ve got to tell you, they did an entire scavenger hunt — like go find the 57 donkeys — and it was one of the most popular things that we did in the community,” Gilbert said.
Convention organizers say a major focus of their work is trying to ensure that the entire city — not just downtown — benefits from the convention and that those benefits last long after the convention ends.
“It means going into every neighborhood. It means making sure that it is not just a convention in Milwaukee, but a convention with Milwaukee,” Gilbert said.
Barrett acknowledged that Milwaukee’s challenges — poverty, housing stock, race relations — will surely come up in news coverage. But Barrett said the city’s struggles are mirrored in other parts of the country.
“That’s what makes us a microcosm of America and why it makes all the sense in the world to have the convention here,” Barrett said.
Gilbert has been part of two Democratic conventions, a presidential inauguration, a tough governor’s race in Texas and the hard-knock world of helping run New Jersey’s Democratic Party for several years. She also witnessed firsthand the staggering losses Wisconsin Democrats suffered in November 2010 and again in the failed 2012 effort to recall former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
But Gilbert said giving back to Wisconsin is very important to her. After all, she got her college degree in the state and also got her first taste of politics as a volunteer with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and as an intern with the state Democratic Party and with the office of former Gov. Jim Doyle.
“It’s not just about getting the volunteers,” she said. “It’s instilling this appreciation for activism and civic engagement and volunteerism in a state where quite literally it’s very personal to me. This is not only where I got my start, but where I saw what it can be, and what organizing and volunteering here in Wisconsin, what it really means.”