Leavitt Leading Early Push for Reorganization of SLOC

With an internal report into allegations of corruption forthcoming, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics is weighing reorganization, several sources said Tuesday.

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Robert Garff, chairman of the committee’s board of trustees, have been pushing a restructuring plan, apparently intent on signaling change before the report from the committee’s ethics panel is released.

It remained unclear late Tuesday whether any reorganization would be substantive or merely cosmetic. Leavitt’s spokeswoman, Vicki Varela, said talks in recent days have involved “a broad agenda” aimed at effecting “substantive, meaningful improvement.”

Organizing committee president Frank Joklik and vice president Dave Johnson resigned last month because of the scandal, which stems from allegations that Salt Lake boosters gave cash and other amenities to International Olympic Committee members or their relatives.

The ethics panel report--based in part on a close review of detailed financial documents--is due out no later than Feb. 11.

A separate IOC inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing in Salt Lake City’s bid already has prompted the resignation of four IOC members, with five more expelled pending an all-members vote in mid-March. Several others remain under investigation.

In Salt Lake City and elsewhere around the world, there were other revelations in the widening scandal:

* The IOC cleared Sydney of misconduct in connection with $70,000 in inducements offered to two African IOC delegates the night before the 1993 vote that awarded the 2000 Summer Games. Sydney beat Beijing by two votes.

Speaking to reporters in Switzerland, Jacques Rogge, the IOC executive board member overseeing the 2000 Games, said of the inducements: “It was legal, legitimate and according to the rules. There is absolutely no problem in the way it was done.”

Rogge acknowledged, however, that he had not spoken to officials in either Kenya or Uganda, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Australian Olympics chief John Coates disclosed on Jan. 22 that he had offered the $70,000 to the IOC members from Kenya and Uganda--$35,000 apiece to the national Olympic committee of each country, to be paid in $5,000 installments for seven years. The offer was contingent on Sydney’s getting the Games.

* Atlanta’s Olympic bid team spent $7.8 million lobbying the IOC in the final two years of its successful campaign to win the 1996 Summer Games, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported, citing federal tax returns.

Nothing in the returns suggested wrongdoing by Atlanta boosters, the paper said.

By comparison, Salt Lake bidders spent $15.3 million from 1987 to 1995, organizing committee spokeswoman Shelley Thomas said Tuesday.

“Everything is sort of turned upside down now in light of these investigations,” Charlie Battle, who headed international relations for Atlanta’s bid, said in a telephone interview.

“When we were bidding, we were actually proud that this sum--in relation to other bid cities, other competitors--seemed fairly nominal.”

* Before taking over the Salt Lake organizing committee, Joklik pressured suppliers of the copper mining company he was running to donate money to Salt Lake’s unsuccessful bid for the 1998 Winter Games, , the Wall Street Journal reported.

Joklik got 12 of Kennecott Corp.’s suppliers to contribute to the 1998 bid, the paper said. In 1991, two weeks after losing the bid, Joklik took aim at companies that did not donate to the bid, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

“A number of people we do business with gave generously to the Olympic bid at our request,” Joklik wrote in a memo on Kennecott letterhead to eight senior managers. “A number of companies turned us down. All other things being equal, bids by these companies should be declined.”

And as for those companies that did donate, the memo continued, “ . . . I would ask you, all other things being equal, to give preferences to these companies.”

Joklik told the Journal the signed memo was not an attempt to discriminate against companies that didn’t help with the 1998 bid. He issued a statement Tuesday, saying the intent of the memo had been to “recognize supporters of the Olympic effort in situations where bids for Kennecott’s business were equal in all other respects.”

* Mitt Romney, a venture capitalist and unsuccessful 1994 Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts, is in the running to replace Joklik. Romney, the son of Utah native and former Michigan Gov. George Romney, has also been president of a Mormon group of congregations in Massachusetts, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Asked about Romney, Varela replied, “We aren’t talking at all about players. We’re talking about the structure of the board.”

* To avoid a repeat of the scandal, Americans want changes in the way cities are selected for the Games, according to a poll released by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The telephone survey of 1,000 adults found that 73% believe there should be significant changes in the selection process. Meanwhile, 83% said there should be greater oversight of the organizations involved in planning the Olympics.

Asked for their feelings about U.S. athletes in the wake of the scandal, 91% said their impressions had not changed or were more positive. Additionally, 74% said their feelings about Olympic sponsors are “no different.”

The poll, conducted Jan. 28-31 by the research firm Wirthlin Worldwide, has a margin of error of plus or minus three points.

Last week, the IOC announced it would change the selection process for the 2006 Games. Among other changes, the IOC barred trips to bidding cities by IOC members.

USOC officials had been “very concerned” that the “daily doses of negative stories” would erode support nationwide for the athletes and the Games, President Bill Hybl said in a statement.

“We’re gratified that a strong majority have not lost sight of what matters most, the athletes and the Games themselves.

“Still, we recognize that Americans have sent a strong signal about the need for reform. And it is clear that those reforms are forthcoming, at all levels.”

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Times staff writer Lisa Dillman contributed to this story from Sydney.