E-Mail This Article to a Friend CITY HALL It’s not the mayor’s party BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Things are getting frosty between Mayor Tom Menino and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the convention is still seven months away. Last week, in a two-way snub, Menino’s key event planners and other top personnel were not invited to a DNC reception, and Menino — an honored guest at the event — didn’t show up.

Last Wednesday, the night before a "media walk-through" of the FleetCenter, the DNC held a reception for national journalists at local nightclub Whiskey Park. The e-mail invitation listed Menino as a "Special Guest," along with several DNC luminaries: DNC chair Terry McAuliffe; New Mexico governor and convention chair Bill Richardson; convention-committee chair Alice Hoffman; and convention CEO Rod O’Connor.

Staffers of Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy attended, as did local politicos Paul Kirk, Dan Glickman, William Francis Galvin, and John Sasso. Not seen — and not invited — were several key figures in the mayor’s office, including Cecily Foster, director of the special-events office, and Howard Liebowitz, director of intergovernmental affairs. The only people invited from City Hall were members of the mayor’s press office.

"It’s a head-scratcher" says one person directly involved in planning the event — and who started hearing complaints about the snubs the next day.

That same source, who asked not to be named, reports that the tensions date back at least to a previous visit to Boston by convention chair Bill Richardson. Richardson wouldn’t meet with Menino on that trip — or Menino wouldn’t meet with Richardson, depending on whom you ask, the source says. "They couldn’t even agree on who snubbed who."

But the Whiskey Park oversight seems to have come directly from the DNC. Representatives of the only other groups given invitation allotments — Lina Garcia of the Democratic National Convention Committee; Karen Grant of the Boston 2004 host committee; Chuck Campion of Dewey Square Group; and Scott Ferson of Liberty Square Group — all said they invited only internal or media guests. (Liberty Square and Dewey Square co-sponsored the event.) They all said that any additional — i.e., political — invitations were issued at the discretion of the DNC.

More serious disputes center around fundraising and planning. On the same day that Menino missed the DNC reception, his press secretary, Seth Gitell, was fielding calls for news stories that blew into town with the DNC. The Boston Herald reported the next day that security for the convention will cost an estimated $40 million, $15 million more than Menino has requested from the federal government. The Boston Globe reported that the DNC was planning events at Fenway Park, Faneuil Hall, and the Bunker Hill Monument. Both articles made the mayor’s office seem out of the loop.

The Herald article also said that Boston 2004 officials are behind on fundraising because the DNC is not providing them with convention-related perks to pass on to big donors.

Gitell confirms Menino’s absence at the Whiskey Park reception, saying "he had another engagement to attend." As to tension between the mayor and the DNC, says Gitell, "All I can say is that the mayor met with Terry McAuliffe at length last week. He continues to try to work together with the DNC to present a great convention for the city."