July 24, 2012

Early in the morning, deep in the Sawtooth Wilderness of Idaho during the twilight hours normally reserved for the dark struggles of nocturnal hunters and their prey, our hero the aging yet young at heart curmudgeon awakes with a startling realization that promises to ruin his much needed vacation slumber for the balance of the clear alpine night. His hockey team, the much maligned yet magnificent Coyotes, had nearly finally been destroyed by the well-funded and overly lawyered self-appointed guardians of the constitution as seen through the eyes of their deeply pocketed constituency and board members Goldwater Institute. How close they had come to finally being doomed to slave away in the virtual salt mines of Quebec City was really known to only a few, and he was one of them. So pull up a stump around this campfire, my friends, while I assume the role of our hero, dispense with the dark and stormy night verbosity and describe how only a perfect storm of incompetence, smugness and the rising up of social media connected friends and hockey fans kept the Coyotes in Glendale, AZ, or at least provided the possibility of that result to the NHL, Glendale and the Jamison group.

The beginning of the end for the Coyotes should have been on June 8, 2012, when an abbreviated Glendale City Council approved the lease deal for the city owned Jobing,com arena on an emergency basis. While Councilmember (CM) Alvarez was absent, I am of the opinion that the city charter states that her refusal to vote in a transparent power move on her part should have counted as an automatic “aye” vote. I posed that scenario in an earlier post here.

Goldwater Institute has been targeting the Coyotes for destruction since their benefactor and board member Jerry Moyes declared bankruptcy of the team he owned despite being subsidized with NHL funds. Goldwater saw the vulnerability of the City of Glendale (CoG) and recruited two Glendale citizens to bring the arena management vote matter into court. While other matters were mentioned in the suit, those matters were only red herrings designed to draw attention away from the real goal of establishing the dismissal of the emergency nature of the CoG vote on June 8. When it was all said and done, the ruling on their suit looked like a victory for the Coyotes and yes, I even declared it so in these blog posts while actually believing that the fate of the Coyotes had been sealed.

Here is where an EASY victory for Jerry Moyes and Goldwater began slipping from their grasp. When I say easy, I mean that they had all the necessary pieces in place ready to deploy and they simply blew it in a spectacular fashion that I choose to celebrate but, hopefully, will give pause to their supporters who truly believe in their STATED purpose as a watchdog group and to their supporters who are using them as tax exempt hit men.

Goldwater Publicly Washes Hands

Clint Bolick, head honcho guy for Goldwater and the boss of Carrie Ann Sitren (who represented Glendale petitioners Cobb and Jones), has recently denied in an interview with Lisa Halverstadt that Goldwater was involved in this most recent attempt to kill the Coyotes in anything more than a casual assistance to their “allies”. He specifically denied that there was any plan to represent the petitioners at all beyond helping them “figure out the complex rules” and was adamant that they never intended to pursue the matter at all. This is disingenuous at best, based on the fact that CM Phil Lieberman spoke with Carrie Ann Sitren on July 9 (the day the petitions were due to be submitted) and was told that she was advising them to turn in the available signatures on that day. I heard this from Phil himself when he called our office on July 13.

For arguments sake, let’s assume for now that Clint wasn’t playing semantic games when speaking with Lisa. Let’s assume that all they were doing, despite appearing in court as the legal representatives of the petitioners and then later sending a demanding letter to CoG on behalf of the petitioners regarding the timeline for gathering signatures, was advising their allies about how to navigate the rules of petitioning for a referendum. If that is true, the Goldwater Institute demonstrated a complete lack of care for their “allies” and they failed so completely that even their ability to follow simple directions should be in question, much less their qualifications to be the “watchdog” of Constitutional rights.

Dumb Goldwater Mistake 1

Joe Cobb and Ken Jones, the Glendale resident front men for Goldwater, were either specifically instructed by Goldwater to delay pulling papers for their petition for their referendum to negate the CoG lease agreement for the Coyotes or they were not advised to pick up the applications on the first day possible, June 11. Because the lease agreement was not passed as an emergency measure, citizens have 30 days from the date of the vote to gather the necessary signatures to get their proposed referendum on the ballot. We know that Goldwater was officially representing the two men in their suit of the city, certainly their advice was either being freely given or was available to their clients. This initial delay was a gigantic strategic error for two reasons.

The first reason is that, obviously, Cobb and Jones would potentially be losing valuable signature gathering days. The second reason is that, had Cobb or Jones bothered to go pull their papers on June 11 and were for some reason refused, then CoG’s hand would be forced and Goldwater would have actually had a legitimate suit of the city for delaying tactics instead of the faulty (and losing) suit they actually filed.

Once Cobb finally moseyed in to the city clerk’s office on June 15 to pull his petition papers, they had already lost a business week of potential signatures. However, the papers weren’t actually filed until five days later, June 20, losing yet another five days of signatures.

So, while under their advisement, Goldwater’s clients managed to fritter away one third of their allotted thirty days to gather signatures on their petition for a referendum to essentially kill the Coyotes. If my attorney had given me such horrible advice, I’d be screaming to anyone who would listen, wouldn’t you?

Dumb Goldwater Mistake 2

The papers filed by Cobb and Jones were completed incorrectly, a simple review of the rules handed to each petitioner would have eliminated these problems and the application would have been valid. Each person pulling papers for a petition is handed the necessary documentation to successfully complete their application. All of the necessary rules that Clint Bolick said that his Goldwater Institute was helping their “allies” navigate is boiled down to sixty pages.

I actually don’t think that Goldwater reviewed the petition application before it was handed in to the CoG City Clerk on June 20. If they did, there were already fatal errors in the application that were later discovered by Glendale First! with amateurs reading the exact same rule book provided to the petitioners.

So, whatever the spin Goldwater would like to put on it, they failed miserably in assisting their “allies” navigate the rules. If they were helping them, as Clint Bolick says they were, then the individual advising Jones and Cobb was extremely incompetent. If Goldwater did NOT do what Bolick said they were doing, then they left their “allies” and/or clients hanging out to dry, effectively having them sit in 110 degree parking lots all day in an exercise that was doomed from the start. Either scenario should count against them, discrediting their competence and loyalty to their “allies” or clients.

Dumb Goldwater Mistake 3

Goldwater didn’t count on a bunch of social media connected Coyotes fans and Glendale citizens banding together nearly overnight to fight back, organizing the Glendale First! political action committee to save the arena lease deal. The goal of the group was to educate people before they signed the referendum petition, providing information about the positive economic impact of the Coyotes and what the loss of the arena lease deal would mean to the citizens of Glendale. I am certain that the group I’m proud to be a member of had a very real impact and was the reason that Cobb and Jones failed to gather the required number of signatures on their petitions.

When Glendale First! appeared on the scene, Goldwater should have advised their “allies” Cobb and Jones to immediately switch their tactic of sitting in front of libraries, thus being vulnerable to the education efforts of the opposing PAC. They should have insisted they become more mobile, perhaps canvassing door to door and being less easy to target with countermeasures. They didn’t, and left their “allies” to sit in the oppressive heat all day, becoming more frustrated as their success at gathering signatures was being thwarted by other concerned citizens.

Dumb Goldwater Mistake 4

Here is the thing that Clint Bolick probably finally realized. Goldwater, having been trying everything they could think of from lawsuits to leaked documents to cupcakes all in the effort to annihilate the Phoenix Coyotes had their demise in their hands and they completely blew it. Clint probably feels foolish, the only reason he wouldn’t is arrogance. I’m not the smartest guy in the world and I actually had written a farewell piece for my team after the judge’s ruling because I saw the way that the petition for the referendum would ultimately succeed.

The premise that must be understood is that, should the petition for the referendum to get the arena lease deal on the November ballot succeeded, just the delay would be enough to negate the arena lease deal because the Jamison group couldn’t realistically close the sale of the Coyotes if the arena where they would play was up in the air. So, the actual result of any vote really wouldn’t be important, the net effect of the uncertainty and yet one more delay would have effectively killed the Coyotes.

How It Would Have Happened

Cobb and Jones get their petition for referendum documents on June 11 and complete them correctly. They set up their PAC differently, instead they opted to set it up as only being able to have 500 dollars of expenditures in case they needed to spend some money to gather signatures. Even, by the way, assuming Cobb and Jones waited until after the court date to get started, they could have succeeded in killing the Coyotes.

Once Ken and Joe started gathering signatures, let’s assume that Glendale First! showed up and began suppressing signatures. They switch tactics and begin going door to door. If, after a couple days it looked like the signature count was low, they hire a professional petition circulating firm to assist them. I believe they would have easily gathered more than enough legitimate signatures to get the referendum on the ballot. Adios Coyotes.

Had Goldwater been more conscientious supporting Cobb and Jones they would have easily finally won the prize they’ve been seeking for over three years. The amount of effort they would have had to expend would have been almost nothing. There is NO WAY that they could have failed.

Keep the faith, my Coyotes brothers and sisters, the people who would have you defeated are losing their credibility and mojo more every day. Eventually their contributors will realize that their stated purpose is not being served and they will look elsewhere for a worthy recipient for their donations.