By George Fallar 
Jason Rose is back and starring in an AZ Republic piece.
He’s not in his role as the trusted advisor to Glendale mayor Weiers helping with the anti-Coyotes project, among other things.
He isn’t wearing his hat as the PR representative for the fabulously nutty Amy’s Baking Company.
This time Jason’s wearing his polo tournament savior of the Coyotes hat, at the perfect jaunty angle of course.
Let Us Stipulate
We can all agree that Jason Rose had absolutely nothing to do with defeating the 2013 referendum attempt.
The 2013 referendum attempt failed because no petitions were ever turned in. Even if those petitions had been turned in, the paperwork for the referendum was deficient.
Glendale First! was on the ground in Glendale every day repeating the same process that was effective in helping defeat the previous two referendum attempts.
As Vizzini said, although the line was changed for the final cut of “The Princess Bride”:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” – but only slightly less well-known is “Never go against Glendale First! when a referendum is on the line”
Even if Mr. Rose had brought his PR acumen to bear, which he did not, it would have been unnecessary and ineffective.
Any contrary argument from the Rose camp is spurious.
As far as “services rendered” to earn the money Mr. Rose alleges he is owed, he has no case.
Lawyer Up
It helps lawyering up when your wife (Jordan Rose) is an attorney that makes appearances at Glendale City Hall. Free legal advice is never far away. We have to assume the Roses chatted about the pros and cons of this potential income opportunity.
The wise thing to do would be to ensure the lawyer on the job was not one’s wife, so the “court expenses” argument in any proposed settlement agreement would have some real weight to it.
To keep billings up, the attorney of record should be somebody other than one’s wife, right? Yup. According to the AZ Republic piece, Jason hired Loren Ungar to represent him.
I don’t have to tell you what firm Loren works for, do I?
Promises Broken (okay, “Projections”)
In April, 2013, Mr. Rose approached the City of Scottsdale for money. He wanted $75k of bed tax money from Scottsdale for the polo event for his Scottsdale Polo Championships LLC he and his wife have. Click here for the Scottsdale City Council document.
They gave him the money.
Mr. Rose did have the benefit of being a paid adviser to Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane at the time, scoring $2k+ a month from Lane’s campaign fund at the time. Lane, of course, voted for it.
In 2012, according to the Scottsdale document, the attendance at the polo event was 9,100 presumably well-heeled people.
The 2013 attendance reported in a piece (click here), likely inflated given the stench of PR flackism in the story, was 12,442. Mr. Rose projected to the City of Scottsdale that 2013 attendance would be 15,000. Whoops.
A seventeen percent difference is huge, yet the review of the event waxes enthusiastic over the attendance.
Mr. Rose, asking for a subsidy from Scottsdale with his snappy hat in hand, also projected attendance in 2014 would grow to 20,000.
The polo peeps have since decided, on their website if not in money requesting sessions, that 2014 attendance is more likely to be closer to 15,000. (click here)
Promises To IceArizona
We should assume that somewhere in the conversations Mr. Rose had with people related to the Coyotes sale in some fashion he also offered them his optimistic attendance projections. He didn’t fulfill that promise, and didn’t miss by a little.
Since even their own optimistic attendance projections have been reduced 25% (from 20k to 15k), it would seem that the reduction in projected attendance is significant enough to trigger the second “clause” in the email where Mr. Woods makes continued sponsorship contingent on the event remaining at the “high level as it has been recently.”
That’s assuming some court decided Grant Woods’ email was a legitimate contract.
Get It In Writing
When there’s money on the line, get it in writing. If there is some confidentiality reason to NOT get something in writing, one runs the risk of being at the mercy of parties denying their statements.
According to the AZ Republic piece, Rose received $25k plus another $25k for a 2013 Coyotes sponsorship of his polo event.
If, as Jason asserts, he had a deal for further sponsorship of his polo party, why didn’t he get the agreement in writing? Is something as off-hand as a “We are a go…” email from Grant Woods considered a contract in Arizona?
Rose has never been complimentary of the Coyotes or of IceArizona. So, why would he trust any of them to pony up money they aren’t legally bound to pay?
It sounds like Mr. Rose is using the court to bail him out of a bad business decision, if that’s what it was. He doesn’t seem fearful that the $50k he already received will be chewed up by his lawyers, either.
Go figure.
Court Documents
I haven’t come up with the actual court filing, I tried and couldn’t find it online yet. It may not yet be published or it’s possible I’m doing something wrong.
What I will look for once I manage to snag a copy of the suit is what Mr. Rose is assuming is a binding contract to pay him or to sponsor his polo gig.
The IceArizona camp is, according to the AZ Rep story, flatly denying Jason’s claims. Anti Coyotes sentiment on social media from the Gannett camp has engorged itself again, some positively giddy tweets and retweets have been flying around.
UPDATE July 7, 2015: Link to CV2014-003611
Twitter handles
Jason Rose – @jasonrosepr
Jennifer Moser – @jenstringfellow
Grant Woods – @GrantWoods
David Leibowitz – @leiboaz
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