Field of Schemes new post Judge: Coyotes deal no "emergency," so referendum on subsidy deal is possible

The long-awaited legal throwdown over Glendale's subsidy deal for the Phoenix Coyotes is finally on, with a Maricopa County judge issuing a a ruling yesterday that could open the door to a November ballot initiative on the $200-million-plus plan.

How exactly this all happened is mind-numbingly technical, but it goes something like this: The Goldwater Institute, a conservative-libertarian think tank, sued the city of Glendale to invalidate the Coyotes deal, saying the city had illegally failed to conduct competitive bidding for an arena operator. (Under the Glendale plan, the Coyotes will operate the facility, and the city will give them gobs of money to do so.) Judge Dean Fink hasn't ruled on that bigger issue yet, but did note that as only four of seven councilmembers voted to approve the deal, it couldn't qualify as an "emergency" measure, which requires five votes.

This turns out to be vitally important, because only emergency legislation is exempt from being overturned by public referendum. So now that Judge Fink has ruled that the Coyotes deal wasn't an emergency, one of the Goldwater plaintiffs is rushing to get 1,862 signatures to put the deal on the November ballot.

Since it seems pretty likely that 1,862 Glendalians (okay, I have no idea what you call somebody from Glendale) can be found to ask this thing to be put on the ballot, the big questions now are whether a referendum overturning the deal can win (good chance, though it depends on how much the NHL is willing to spend on campaigning against it) and whether prospective owner Greg Jamison will even stick around long enough to find out. November isn't that all that long to wait, but given the checkered history of past prospective Coyotes owners, and the fact that Jamison reportedly still hasn't been able to raise the $170 million in cash needed to buy the team, even with a $224 million subsidy awaiting, it's entirely possible that we could go through another two or three Coyotes buyers before this thing even hits the ballot. Jerry Reinsdorf, where are you?

from Field of Schemes http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2012/06/4986_judge_coyotes_d.html