Not a speedy delivery
No word on when Salt Lake ethics panel will deliver report
Posted: Wednesday January 27, 1999 06:32 PM
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Organizing committee president Tom Welch, one of the first to fall, was stripped of his contract and pension AP |
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- As a Feb. 11 deadline approaches, the ethics panel examining Salt Lake's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games isn't even hinting it's close to wrapping up.
"We want to do it as promptly as we can, but we just haven't got it completed yet," the panel's chairman, Gordon Hall, said Wednesday. "We're still working."
Hall said he could not predict when the results of the ongoing investigation would be turned over to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, whose chairman has promised decisive action against any board members found culpable for excesses in Salt Lake's bid.
Many of those from the Salt Lake bid committee became part of the organizing committee after the International Olympic Committee awarded Salt Lake City the games in 1995.
It's not just a matter of writing the panel's report, Hall said. "We have been writing from the beginning. We've been documenting everything we've been doing."
Hall, a former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, is joined on the panel by former U.S. Attorney David Jordan, two professors and an accountant skilled in investigation.
SLOC began the inquiry Dec. 18 and imposed the Feb. 11 deadline on itself.
Revelations by SLOC's outside attorneys, including cash payments of more than $70,000, already have prompted a housecleaning at the committee's headquarters.
On Jan. 8, senior vice president David Johnson resigned and two senior vice presidents were put on administrative leave pending completion of the investigations.
The same day, former bid and organizing committee president Tom Welch was stripped of his $10,000-a-month consulting contract and pension. SLOC President Frank Joklik, who said he knew nothing of the lavish spending, resigned to give the games a fresh start.
An International Olympic Committee investigation released Sunday found Salt Lake's bid committee spent nearly $800,000 on 14 IOC members, including travel expenses, scholarships for their children, medical care and cash payments in the years leading up to the 1995 vote making Salt Lake an Olympic host city.
The IOC on Sunday ousted six members, including one who alone received $216,000 from Salt Lake, warned another, and said it continues to investigate three others. Another four have resigned, and one died last summer.
Those ousted can appeal for reinstatement at an IOC meeting March 17-18, although they are almost certain to be denied.
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