Dec. 17, 1999
Was there an Olympic coverup? The records of two years worth of meetings of top Salt Lake Olympic bid organizers are apparently missing, and Eyewitness News has learned that it was in those meetings that bidders drafted their strategy for making sure Salt Lake City would win the 2002 bid. News Specialist John Daley has been following this story.
Through the organizer's Open Record Policy, Eyewitness News has obtained copies of minutes from bid committee executive board meetings from December 1988 through January 1999. Trouble is there's a two-year gap missing from the notes, that corresponds with the period during which top Olympic leaders put on a full court press to win the games. And, Eyewitness News has learned that's coincidentally when the "vote influencing" program that turned into a scandal, got its start.
A public celebration marked the day Salt Lake won the bid to host the 2002 Games. It was a private, behind the scenes campaign to win the Games that paved the way. A thick stack of papers obtained by Eyewitness News documents that effort. These are the lengthy minutes of the bid-committee executive board meetings. They cover the dates from December 1988 through January 1999. But, there's a significant two-year lapse from November 1989 through January 1991, where there're no minutes from any meeting, this while there were detailed minutes of meetings from both before and after those dates.
The gap is noteworthy since it covers a period ranging from the time when Salt Lake lost its bid for the 1998 Games to Nagano, Japan and refocused itself to win the 2002 Games. Kelly Flint, lawyer for both the bid and organizing committees tells the Associated Press the missing notes cover a period of "informal" board meetings and says, "To my knowledge, minutes were not taken of these meetings during that period." Then-board secretary, lawyer Jim Jardine says: "I don't recall ever personally taking any minutes and I don't know whether they were taken during that period."
But Eyewitness News has learned from two separate sources who attended those meetings, that minutes "were always taken" during that period. Those sources asked not to be identified by name. Eyewitness News has also learned that sources who attended those meetings say records do exist, and far from being "informal," they detail a very organized strategy to win Olympic votes, described on the documents as "a vote influencing campaign." Records of those meetings, if they exist, would either prove, or disprove, whether top Olympics bid committee peddling.
Records could also show no wrongdoing occurred -- but the official word now is, there are no records. And that raises questions about some other documents. February's Ethics Report notes that the SLOC's outside counsel Ray, Quinney and Nebeker -- Mr. Jardine's lawfirm -- reported they had "inadvertantly destroyed two boxes of documents." We asked Jardine if there is any connection between the destroyed documents and the two-year gap and he says the documents destroyed were from '93 and '94. "No connection there. Different time periods," he says.
Top executive board officials have vehemently denied they knew about the vote-buying program--essentially blaming two men: former SLOC President Tom Welch and former SLOC Vice-President Dave Johnson. Two years of apparently missing minutes could help answer the question: who knew about the program that lead to the entire bribery scandal mess.
