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 issued a press release saying in part, “Today Glendale First has officially abandoned and withdrawn our sponsorship of recall efforts against Glendale, AZ Councilmembers Hugh, Turner and Tomalchoff.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

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