By George Fallar February 21, 2013
If you read my “Reruns In Glendale” post from a couple days ago, you’ll remember that some familiar players from the early days of the Coyotes fiasco have been quietly resurfacing around the edges of the current administration in Glendale.
One of those players is Beacon Sports Capital Partners who have been, according to two sources, awarded the task of controlling the Requests For Proposal (RFP) for the Glendale owned arena. Yes, this is one part of the “deal” upon which the future of the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale hinges.
By now, obviously, time is of the essence. Delaying anything related to the arena and the hockey team shoves the Coyotes closer to the relocation edge every day. So it seems odd that there have been NO official statements of substance from the City of Glendale, the NHL, or any of the “four” interested buyers mentioned by new mayor Weiers. So, delaying the publication of an RFP seems a dangerous tack regarding the future success of Jobing.com arena.
I had called Beacon on the 19th to see if I could get a clarification of their role in the still invisible to the public RFP. Technically, I should be able to actually submit a bid myself to manage the arena. I received a call back a few minutes ago from Gerald Sheehan, the Beacon CFO.
Mr. Sheehan would not speak about the RFP with me after I explained who I was. I would characterize his demeanor as surprised and curious about how I knew about the RFP he would not verify the existence of. He said he would have no statement regarding anything along those lines. When informed the Glendale acting city manager was apparently stating Beacon was in charge of the operation, he stated that I should check with the city manager about it. We ended our conversation at that point.
I would imagine that, based on my conversation with Mr. Sheehan, there is indeed an RFP that is in the hands of Beacon at this point. Whether they have begun to contact any potential future bidders or not, I can only guess.
The Glendale City Council is having a “retreat” today, essentially an executive session to which the public is not invited. Since the arena is on the agenda for this meeting (as “real property” see item 1.vi) we can hope that they will make some progress on the arena. It’s interesting that the budget presentation for the “retreat” still is carrying a $17.576M expenditure for the arena in fiscal year 2013. Why? That expenditure is off the table, isn’t it?
Time for the people involved in this fiasco to start dealing in public instead of in private.
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