Sen. Bob Bennett personally led the fight for every cent of the $400 million or so in federal aid for the 2002 Olympics. Now, he's taking a close look at exactly how well the money is being spent.
"I am visiting all of the Olympic venues. I want to see if we are getting our money's worth," he said.
He has visited competition venues, media centers, the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command headquarters, the medals plaza and other Olympic sites. He says he's been talking to everyone from athletes to police to visiting heads of state.
"We were in Nagano for the Olympics there, and we saw all the work that went into it. We frankly wondered if Salt Lake City could measure up. But we have, in the opinion of virtually all those we have talked to," Bennett, R-Utah, said.
Bennett is the only Utahn in Congress on an appropriations committee. His championship of Olympics funding there was often attacked as home-state pork-barrel spending ? especially by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Bennett says he will report to the Senate about his inspections and improvements and problems he finds with security and transportation.
"It's been money very well-spent from what I've seen so far," Bennett said.
He said he's especially impressed with security, which took about half the direct federal aid, according to estimates by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
"The level of sophistication, cooperation and coordination among all the law enforcement agencies (federal, state and local) is truly amazing ? there is no other word for it," Bennett said.
"Some of the officials I've talked to were also at Atlanta. They said we learned a great deal there and applied it here. They said things have been going much more smoothly here," he said.
As Bennett toured the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command headquarters last week ? in part to view the communications equipment that federal money helped buy ? he said he received word from the Justice Department "that the final $12.5 million to buy such equipment is being sent today."
The General Accounting Office said in November that the federal government was spending $342 million in direct aid to the Olympics. But Bennett said maybe another $50 million was spent after that to beef up security amid terrorist worries. Besides that, the GAO said the federal government provided $1 billion in indirect aid, mostly to speed up highway and transportation projects it normally would have funded more slowly. That included building TRAX and widening I-15.
Bennett said he and others have been impressed with transportation systems, except for first-day delays at the Snowbasin Ski Area that prevented many spectators from seeing the men's downhill race.
"Every Olympics has some transportation problems. But compared to (those) at other Olympics, problems have been minor," Bennett said.
"One thing that is unanimous and ubiquitous is praise for volunteers. Many from other countries can't understand how we get so many volunteers."
E-MAIL: lee@desnews.com