The Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee made the right move this week when it adopted a procurement policy similar to ones followed by government. Too bad the committee stumbled when the time came to extend that government analogy to open records.
Not that the committee has completely failed to recognize a need to be frank about its dealings. The decision to release details of the $315,000 yearly salary package, plus benefits, given to its president, Tom Welch, was a positive sign.Welch's salary (which, by the way, is not excessive for someone heading such a large event - particularly someone whose volunteer efforts brought the Games) is of concern to the public. So are details about contracts, policies and budgets.
Along with the agenda of its meeting this week, the committee included a long and impressive list of records that should be made public. This, too, was a good sign that principles of openness will be followed.
But the wording of the committee's overall records policy left something to be desired. It stated that records concerning only "general information related to the planning for and the conducting" of the 2002 Winter Games will be made available to the public.
Agreements will be available only "when possible" and only when the release of terms wouldn't result in an unfair competitive advantage to the parties involved. The list of public items includes only summaries of contracts.
The vague qualifiers, such as "general information" and "when possible," are of concern. They put a stamp of ambiguity on the policy that easily could be used to keep almost anything from the eyes of the public.
Granted, the organizing committee is not a public entity. It doesn't directly receive tax money. A separate group, the Sports Authority, is charged with handling the public funds set aside for the Olympics.
But while it is not subject to the open-records laws that govern public entities, the committee would be wise to follow a policy that allows for little interpretation by employees and management. The entire state has invested a good deal of its future and prestige on the Olympic Games and each resident has an interest in how they are organized and conducted.
That understanding seems to have driven the procurement policy, which will provide accountability through volumes of records. It should have been more strongly present in the open-records policy.