The private sector has pledged about $50,000 to offset the cost of Saturday’s One City Summit, but taxpayers could still be on the hook for more than half-a-million dollars, Mayor Vincent Gray’s office acknowledged Thursday.
“We have secured nearly $50,000 in promised contributions,” Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro told The Washington Examiner.
Ribeiro declined to release the identities of the donors because the District has not formally received their contributions for the meeting, which Gray’s office said could cost up to $600,000.
| If you go |
| > The One City Summit is Saturday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. For information, go to onecitysummit.dc.gov or call 202) 709-5132. Registration is free. |
| If you don’t |
| > The Washington Examiner will cover the One City Summit throughout the day Saturday. For updates, visit www.dcexaminer.com or follow Staff Writer Alan Blinder (@alanblinder) on Twitter. |
Ribeiro said he expected the private contributions to cover food costs, while the District will pay other expenses, including rental of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and the $457,500 contract for America Speaks, a D.C.-based nonprofit that will facilitate the conference.
For weeks, Gray and his aides predicted that taxpayers would share the summit’s cost with private donors. But the mayor said on Feb. 1 that he wouldn’t abandon plans for the gathering if the outside funding didn’t come through.
“Hopefully, we will be successful in getting offsetting private contributions, but if not, I’m prepared to go ahead with this,” Gray said then. “This is something we will look to our budget for to be able to facilitate.”
At that time, Gray’s office said some public funding would come from money D.C. saved after securing a lower bond interest rate. Ribeiro said Thursday that although those savings will pay for part of the summit, city officials were still finalizing how to pay the rest.
“I don’t know if they’ve figured that out,” Ribeiro said of the District’s payment plans. “But it will come from different accounts … places where there is underspending.”
In recent weeks, Gray has defended plans for the meeting and its cost.
“I don’t have any reservations about saying I’d like to get 1,000 or 2,000 people to come together to talk about the future of this city,” he said earlier this month. “This was something I wanted to do because it’s participatory democracy, and I believe this is something the city ought to invest in.”
By Thursday afternoon, Ribeiro said 3,211 people had registered to attend the conference. Ribeiro said organizers expect about 60 percent of registered participants — 1,927 people — to ultimately attend.
The high registration figure, Ribeiro said, was a sign of interest in the District’s future.
“It shows that people are taking this seriously and that they want to come and participate,” Ribeiro said.
Gray, who ran for mayor on a “One City” platform, has billed the event as a “frank and open conversation” in which participants will offer their opinions through digital voting keypads and discussions at their tables.
