This is a "start" because this conflict is a long way from being over - the Coyotes have already gained a restraining order to prevent the city from cancelling the lease, as well as taken steps for filing a $200 million lawsuit against the city.
The Glendale City Council voted 5-2 Wednesday to cancel its 15-year, $225 million arena lease agreement with IceArizona, which co-owns the Arizona Coyotes.
The city council's vote was based on an Arizona statute that allows an agency to cancel a contract when an employee who was highly involved with the agreement becomes an agent or employee of the contract's other party. Craig Tindall has served as general counsel to the Coyotes since 2013 after stepping down from his role as Glendale city attorney shortly before the lease was approved.
There have been many critics of the vote by the council, but there are also many supporters - people like me, who believe that public resources should be used to benefit the public, not to subsidize private businesses to the detriment of the public (to be fair, there are also people, like John Washington, Libertarian/Republican author of the blog Scottsdale Trails, who support the Glendale council's vote, but because he believes that all public assets should be privatized*).
However, no matter the political position of the observer, nearly every observer acknowledges that the contract almost *had* to be cancelled by the Glendale City Council - it was serving to devastate the city's finances.
The eyebrow-raising fact that the city's former attorney is now working for the Coyotes is just the Coyotes being arrogant enough to believe that they are untouchable, beyond any kind of push back or accountability.
There *is* word that at least two of the politicians in the city of Phoenix, Councilman Michael Nowakowski and Mayor Greg Stanton, are maneuvering to bring the Coyotes back to Phoenix.
Considering that the success of the Coyotes' business model seems to be predicated on impoverishing the community they are based in, Nowakowski and Stanton would have to be complete idiots to support the Coyotes moving back to Phoenix.
And while I don't know much about Nowakowski, I have met Stanton, and he is definitely not an idiot.
Of course, the sums of money that are being talked about here have been known to make even the brightest star a dim bulb.
* = John is a friend, and while he is on the wrong side of almost every issue in America where there is a partisan/ideological divide (with him being on the "Right" side, and me being on the correct side :) ), he genuinely cares about Scottsdale and his blog provides indispensable coverage of the political going-on here. I highly recommend making it part of your regular reading.
1 comment:
No matter which political figure you look at the proper question to ask is "Cui bono?"
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