It has been 17 years and 230 days since the city’s pledge to build the West Branch Library.
NOTE: Many have taken the opportunity to email me and berate me because my blogs have not been as frequent as usual. Personal matters have had me traveling out of state on a regular basis and have not allowed me the opportunity to write about Glendale issues on my usual schedule. Hopefully the end of August will provide some relief and I will be able to resume my normal schedule of blogs.
On August 14, 2015, Glendale First! issued a press release saying in part, “Today Glendale First has officially abandoned and withdrawn our sponsorship of recall efforts against Glendale, AZ Councilmembers Hugh, Turner and Tomalchoff.
We are satisfied the city has endorsed a new short term relationship with the Arizona Coyotes that is currently in the best interest of all involved. We’re hoping sincere efforts result in a long term agreement being reached between the City and the Arizona Coyotes in the near future.
These recall efforts shined a bright light on actions by councilmembers that negatively impacted public safety budgets and that put at risk the City of Glendale’s relationship with the Arizona Coyotes. We applaud the unanimous action taken by City Council on July 24th. We thank both the Coyotes and the City for striking a suitable arrangement.
We hope the pledge of the City Council to examine the needs and deficiencies in the two public safely departments bears fruit in the form of reduced response times.”
I contend, as I did originally, that Glendale First! used a public safety issue as a smoke screen for their primary anger over the action taken by a majority of Glendale’s city council canceling the original lease agreement with the Coyotes’ ownership. If they were really concerned about public safety issues they would have continued their recall effort. In this press release their angst over public safety is almost an after thought, easily dismissed now that the Coyotes are staying for the next two years.
We can assume that the Coyotes’ ownership counseled Glendale First! to cut it out and to quit its puny attempt to unseat the existing councilmembers as ownership seeks to mend fences with the Glendale city council as it enters a period of renegotiation of a new, more permanent lease agreement.
The Glendale citizens who have contacted me via email, to a person, want the city to issue an RFP for the arena’s management. They believe the city may get a better deal. While they want the Coyotes as arena tenants in the light of past history, they are not convinced it is in the best interests of the city to use the Coyotes’ ownership group for the arena’s management. They want city council as President Reagan once said, “trust but verify.”
The best way to verify what is a fair market price for Glendale’s arena management is to solicit bids. If the Coyotes’ ownership wants to continue to manage the arena they can respond to the RFP just as any other company. Competition is good for a city’s soul and competition for securing an arena management company is a win proposition for the city and its taxpaying citizens.
© Joyce Clark, 2015
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
I agree..it took some guts for the council to do what they did and Im glad Leblanc reacted as he did.
The Coyotes are important to Westgate..
I know first hand..
I just tried to get a hotel room at the Westgate hotels for the opening of the rookies coming to town on September 12th….
ALL FULL
Man, what a bummer…..
Anyway…congrats to both sides on this issue
That’s politics….that’s business.
I am so glad that the city cancelled the original agreement, I am somewhat glad that they were able to come to an agreement, there are some things in the agreement that I still don’t believe in, but it is certainly better than paying them 15M a year.
If Ice Arizona puts in a bid on the RFP I would hope that the city would learn from past mistakes and to believe what is written on paper isn’t necessary true for this group of individuals. I think their true colors have been shown, I would hope the council has lived and learned from this mess.
I feel as you do, safety was a smoke screen for Glendale First and if they felt it was a true issue they would have continued, I think they have lost any credibility that they may have had as a “grass roots” effort. I chuckled when I saw they were cancelling their effort to recall council members. *SMH*
We missed you, glad your back and hope all is okay! Take care Joyce!