Jan. 13, 2000
The Salt Lake Organizing Committee has decided not to fire its law firm for destroying some records and not taking minutes.
News Specialist John Daley has the story.
Olympic trustees decided not to take action today on a heated matter that's been brewing for several weeks now.
At issue--2 boxes of destroyed documents and a two-year period for which there are no notes or minutes of meetings of the top Olympic board, its Executive Committee.
The chief lawyer in question, Jim Jardine, gave a long and complicated explanation for the whole matter.
Jardine said the original bid committee did not have an Executive Committee for a time and did not ask his firm to take minutes from November 1989 to November 1991.
That period of time includes the time after which Salt Lake lost the Winter Games to Nagano, Japan.
But board member Lillian Taylor, who brought the issue to the board, made an empassioned speech, saying she'd been haunted for a year about the destroyed documents.
Lillian Taylor/Member, Board of Trustees: "AS THE KEEPER OF THE RECORDS, SOMEBODY'S GOT TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT. I'M NOT SURE WHO ATE THE HOMEWORK, BUT IT HAPPENED."
Jardine works for the law firm Ray, Quinney & Nebeker, which has the Olympic contract for legal services.
His former partner, Kelly Flint, who now works for SLOC, was also retained today.
In last February's Ethics Report, Jardine admitted his firm accidentally destroyed two boxes of documents from before the time when Salt Lake won the Games.
But Jardine said those were duplicate records and that SLOC still has those documents.
