jobing.com arena

Jobing.com arena

To date the media and Glendale residents have been denied access to the four bids submitted to Beacon Sports, the city’s $100,000 consultant hired to accept and vet all bids to manage Jobing.com arena, a city-owned facility. Very recently the city finally released the names of the four bidders and it has been reported that R Entertainment and Phoenix Monarch Group (PMG) were rejected for not meeting minimum specifications. By the way, Art Jimenez, principal of PMG, publicly stated that he has formed a new group, PMG Management and Entertainment, LLC. As of this date it is not registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission and the name is still available, if anyone out there is interested.

There is no legal basis with which to deny the public access to the Beacon bids. We first go to the City Charter to see what it says about bids. In Article VIII, Section 2-Competitive Bidding it says, “The city council shall establish by ordinance formal guidelines regulating the purchase of goods and services by the city. Such ordinance shall specify the conditions pursuant to which formal competitive bidding shall be required, conditions pursuant to which informal competitive bidding shall be required and those conditions under which no bidding for city contracts shall be required.”  Last amended on 3-15-88.

This section authorized the city council to establish a formal bidding process. That formal process is outlined in Glendale’s Municipal Code, which was originally adopted and subsequently amended by city council vote as ordinances. An ordinance is a city law and can only be superseded by the Arizona Revised Statutes (established and passed by the Arizona Legislature).

scalesWe then go to Glendale’s Municipal Code, Section 2-145, Formal Purchase Procedure, (2) b, Sealed Bidding Procedure (IFB) which states, “Bids shall be opened publicly at the time and place designated in the invitation for bids. The amount of each bid, and such other relevant information as may be specified by the materials manager, together with the name of each bidder shall be recorded as determined by the materials manager. This record shall be open to public inspection after the bid opening in a manner prescribed by the materials manager (bold mine). Except to the extent the bidder designates, and the city concurs, trade secrets or other proprietary data contained in the bid documents shall remain confidential.”

Then we have to check Arizona Revised Statutes to see if there is anything different from city code. For that information, we refer to Arizona Revised Statutes, Section 41-2533. Competitive Sealed Bidding. D. which states, Bids shall be opened publicly at the time and place designated in the invitation for bids.  The amount of each bid, and such other relevant information as may be specified by rule, together with the name of each bidder shall be recorded.  This record shall be open to public inspection at the bid opening in a manner prescribed by rule (bold mine).  The bids shall not be open for public inspection until after a contract is awarded.  To the extent the bidder designates and the state concurs, trade secrets or other proprietary data contained in the bid documents shall remain confidential in accordance with rules adopted by the director.”

Well, look at that, the Glendale Municipal Code and Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) almost mirror one another on the language! Please take note of the sentence in the above cited ARS that says, “The bids shall not be open for public inspection until after a contract is awarded.” That prescription is lacking in Glendale’s Municipal Code. As it is not a prescription in Glendale’s Municipal Code it appears that Glendale is required to release the bid information after bid opening and I don’t think it means weeks later. Both bodies of law allow proprietary information to be redacted from any bid. And both codes allow public inspection after the bids are opened.

It would seem that Glendale has failed to follow its own Municipal Code process. It should release the results of the bidding process of all 4 bids NOW (in fact, it should already have done so) and redact only that information that is proprietary.  Just to be sure there is no confusion over what constitutes proprietary information; Webster’s defines it as, “possession, ownership or exclusive right.” It’s time for Glendale to cough it up.

There is no justifiable reason to discuss the Beacon bids in council Executive Session. They should have been publicly released by now. Those bids are what they are. The presentation on the bids should be in public workshop session. Council either accepts one or it rejects all but it would provide the public with an opportunity to discover just exactly how much two major companies, SMG World and Phoenix Arena Development think it’s worth to them to manage and operate Jobing.com.

There is also no reason why Councilmember Sherwood cannot discuss the worth of keeping the Coyotes in Glendale. After all, it’s not new information. During the Jamison negotiations, Interim City Manager Skeete publicly stated that keeping the Coyotes brings Glendale an approximate additional million dollars a year in revenue.

contractIt is justifiable and prudent that council discuss the RSE deal in Executive Session. They are in the midst of negotiations with the group. It provides the full council an opportunity to hear the terms of the deal and to offer any and all changes to those terms for further negotiation. It was no more than the former council did that resulted in a lower management fee and penalties and incentives for under/over performance. Once all terms are satisfactory to both sides, the deal terms should be released publicly and the vote scheduled for one week after release.

It has been widely reported that the Renaissance Entertainment’s management deal with Glendale may come before the council for a vote on June 25th, June 28th or as late as July 9th. When there was all of that furor over the Jamison ownership deal last acceptanceyear a court mandated that the deal be made public one week before any scheduled council vote on the issue. I suspect denialthat prescription still holds true. In that case, if the RSE deal is scheduled for a council vote on June 25th, it must be released to the public for its consideration one week before on June 19th. If the vote is June 28th, it must be publicly available on June 21st. If the vote is on July 9th, the public is entitled to review it on July 3rd. Come on, mayor and council, get your act together and practice the transparency that you love to preach.

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