June 13, 2012

Here we are after 11AM on Wednesday, June 13, 2012. We fans of the Coyotes fiasco were told (or at least led to believe) by Goldwater Institute that they would be in court first thing Monday morning looking to have the Friday vote of the Glendale City Council (CoG) regarding the Jobing.com arena lease and associated details with the Jamison group nullified.

After losing their attempt at stopping the vote on Friday morning by piggybacking their request on their open case (Goldwater Institute v. City of Glendale CV2009-020757) against CoG (for not providing documents in a timely fashion), Goldwater spun a comment by the judge and indicated they would be back in court with the necessary filings to essentially roll back the decision of the CoG. The Coyotes crowd in Arizona and Canada waited with bated breath for Goldwater to announce their latest courtroom drama Monday morning.

It didn’t happen. There were rumblings of filings and schedules, but Monday came and went with no further interference from Goldwater.

So, Tuesday, we all just KNEW it would happen. Rumors abounded on the usual social media outlets from the usual social media mavens of Goldwater going back to court with their ducks in a row, all they had to do was wait for a docket slot and the fireworks would begin.

It didn’t happen.

Here we are Wednesday. In the meantime, CM Joyce Clark was on XTRA 910 and, when asked if she had anything to say to Goldwater she said that yes, as a matter of fact I do:
“Bring it on, baby!”

That sort of direct threat back at the threatening Goldwater Institute has never been heard up to this point. It has been clear for a long time that CoG is fed up with Goldwater, all it takes is a look at the transcript of the highly ridiculous “cupcake summit” during the Hulsizer mess. City attorney Tindall, when asked recently in a public city council meeting about Darcy Olsen (Goldwater big-wig) stating the Tohono O’odham Nation had offered to completely “fix” the Coyotes situation (while of course having a new casino in Glendale), Tindall said that was a complete lie.

Those are strong words that one would imagine would elicit a response from an organization with the hubris of Goldwater.

Nope, nothing. Not until this morning when Goldwater filed a new case (link here) on behalf of two Glendale citizens. AZ Capitol Times outlining a statement from Goldwater:

Lucy Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the institute, said the lawsuit will argue that the city violated open meetings laws.

The lawsuit will claim that Glendale violated a 2009 court order when it approved the Coyotes deal on June 8 without having released all the exhibits and documents associated with the lease agreement.

I have a theory as to why it is happening in this fashion instead of Goldwater piggybacking another motion on their existing case.

Hey, I didn’t lose, the CITIZENS did

I don’t imagine that, with the necessary documents already floating all over the Valley of the Sun for some days now, Goldwater really has a chance of winning this case beyond perhaps forcing a revote. I do NOT know case law that would support such a judicial interfering with legislative branch action, but I’m sure there is something somewhere.

Because they are likely to lose in a rapid manner on the documents front, they’ve added another piece to the puzzle by insisting that the arena management be put out to competitive bid according to the city charter. I have not done any research on the validity of this claim but I’d almost be willing to bet that there is some vague language that can be misinterpeted. (Here’s a link to the necessary page) This point has been popping up repeatedly in recent CoG meetings, it has even come out of the mouth of former Coyotes cheerleader Mayor Elaine Scruggs if I’m not mistaken. One must assume that City Attorney Tindall has taken this matter under advisement at some point in the past three years and provided his legal opinion to the city council.

A reasonable person would have to first ask exactly how many people looking to make a competitive arena management bid can bring an NHL hockey team to the table and a guaranteed 40 or more nights of thousands of people wandering around WestGate eating, drinking and being merry? 30 people in the world is the answer. Only one that’s ready to go is the REAL answer.

When Goldwater loses or doesn’t win in a convincing fashion, they will used their legendary spin skills to ramp it up to a convincing victory and there will be phraseology in there stating how it’s only poor citizens Ken Jones and Joe Cobb  of Glendale who lent their names to the task that have lost. These two guys are well known to some of us who frequent CoG meetings. We have NO DOUBT that Ken and Joe are genuine in their beliefs and honestly think that this suit is the proper thing to do.

Time is on my side

I believe the REAL goal of this suit is to simply delay the ratification process for the Coyotes deal past where the deal is actually feasible. It was obvious from the demeanor of Gary Bettman at the Friday CoG meeting that the NHL has had quite enough of this whole scenario and the time has come to fish or cut bait. Greg Jamison and group are ready, the NHL is ready, and the City of Glendale is ready.

I believe that Goldwater has an idea that there is indeed a hard deadline for the entire Coyotes deal to be completed, one imposed by the NHL. Goldwater sees that the hockey season is over, they know plans have to be made for next season, and they’re pretty sure that the NHL has other buyers ready to go. The only piece that Goldwater needs to know in order to complete what we’ll call “Jerry’s Revenge” is when the actual deadline date is.

Some have speculated when that date is, I have my own opinion. Of course I won’t mention when I believe the date is, there’s no advantage to that. I think, however, that we’ll be able to determine roughly when Goldwater thinks the deadline is. How? Here in their complaint:

Ordinarily, measures are not effective or operative for 30 days. Glendale City Charter Art. VII, § 6. They may be referred to the voters if sufficient signatures are collected within 30 days. Glendale City Charter Art. X, § 1 & A.R.S. § 19-142(A).

Their complaint cites the need to expedite, but it does NOT refer to expediting the final result. What they want rushed is putting aside the decision of the city council.

Once the parties are in court, if my theory is correct, Goldwater will insist that at least two weeks will be necessary to review the “missing documents” and, even after that, some period of extra time would be necessary to allow the citizenry to make public comments before any new meeting to have a revote can be scheduled by CoG.

Once the decision of Glendale’s elected officials is set aside by the judicial branch, Goldwater has already put us on notice that they will be looking for a 30 day delay for, probably, competitive bids to be gathered and vetted. That should be easily enough time to get past any deadline imposed by the NHL.

So, let’s assume the highly unlikely event occurs and Goldwater gets everything they’re asking for, what happens then?

Do you feel lucky, well DO you, PUNK!

My theories are based on the arrogance of the Institute that has them convinced they are essentially unbeatable regardless of the validity of their claims. Their favorite “gift clause” toy was easily emasculated with a reasonable deal agreed upon between the parties involved. Goldwater is without a doubt tactically expert in using the court system and vague wording in laws to their advantage. Because of this, they feel that waiting any length of time will not damage their arguments in this matter, basically that CoG once again didn’t provide necessary documents to the public in a timely fashion. The addition of the competitive bidding process, again assuming an unlikely win on their part, will add 30 days to the process.

We assume that all of these maneuvers are transparent to the parties involved. We’ve already heard Joyce Clark call out Goldwater. Now that this new suit is in play, we also assume that New York lawyer Gary Bettman will go into gunfighter (or Dirty Harry) mode and start kicking back. We also assume that people involved in the Jamison group are lawyers and, if not, certainly have the legal resource necessary to make EVEN A COMPLETE WIN by Goldwater nothing but the final blip in this ludicrous story.

We also hope that more people will begin to realize the nature of the Goldwater beast and withhold their contributions, maybe finding another group with similarly stated goals. We hope that people living in the Valley of the Sun, other than people like myself who have had their school budget destroyed by Goldwater. will see that Goldwater’s insistence on expensive courtroom drama rather than productive discourse in resolving “problems” is nothing more than an attention grabbing technique that is less effective monetarily than being a concerned citizen’s group.

All this action does is solidify the conflict of interest that Goldwater has in this case. Ken and Joe are not really the plaintiffs in this case, does anybody believe that? Let’s get Jerry Moyes out in the light, speaking of “sunshine laws” and see what his dog is in this fight.

Jerry?