GLENDALE, Ariz – The Arizona Coyotes once again find themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons. The City of Glendale is voting tonight to decide whether or not to “terminate” their 15-year lease agreement with the Coyotes and Gila River Arena. While they claim they cannot specify the subject of the meeting, the agenda calls for discussion of section 38-511 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which states:
“A. The state, its political subdivisions or any department or agency of either may, within three years after its execution, cancel any contract, without penalty or further obligation, made by the state, its political subdivisions, or any of the departments or agencies of 
either if any person significantly involved in initiating, negotiating, securing, drafting or creating the contract on behalf of the state, its political subdivisions or any of the departments or agencies of either is, at any time while the contract or any extension of the contract is in effect, an employee or agent of any other party to the contract in any capacity or a consultant to any other party of the contract with respect to the subject matter of the contract.”
The relevance of this statute is closely tied to the employment status of an attorney named Craig Tindall. In February of 2013, Tindall was the City Attorney for the City of Glendale. He was forced to resign his position, effective April 1 of that year, by a majority vote of the Glendale City Council. As part of his severance package, he retained that job title (and the attached salary) for another six months. On August 1 he was hired by the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes. Clearly, the Glendale City Council intend to insinuate that Tindall held undue sway over the negotiations and gave the Coyotes an unfairly advantageous lease agreement. This might have some merit if he had been actively involved in the negotiations with IceArizona, the Coyotes’ ownership group. In fact, he had been off the job for almost two months before those negotiations began, so he couldn’t have had any influence on those proceedings. If this situation ends up in court, which it likely will if the City of Glendale tries to renege on its agreement, I can’t imagine it ending well for the City of Glendale. Legally, it looks like an open and shut case.
This is not the first wrinkle in the relationship between the Coyotes and the City of Glendale. Indeed, they have been at odds since before the ink dried on the original agreement. Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers has made no secret of his opposition to this agreement. Before, during, and at every moment since the negotiations Weiers has been its most vocal critic. He and his Vice Mayor, Ian Hugh (who voted against the agreement as a member of the City Council two years ago), have spent the better part of the last two years trying to sabotage the deal.
They began by claiming that the four council members who approved the deal had violated the city’s “Open Meeting” law during negotiations, a claim that was investigated by the Arizona Attorney General with no result.
Prior to this latest maneuver, Mayor Weiers and Vice Mayor Hugh have recently claimed that the Coyotes are in breach of their lease agreement, without offering a scintilla of evidence to that effect. They haven’t even received the results of their extensive audit of the Coyotes’ 2013-14 finances. For their part, the Coyotes have staunchly defended their position that they are not in breach and have acted in good faith throughout the negotiation process and the initial two years of the deal.
In addition, Mayor Weiers has gone public with grievances about the way the Coyotes operate, insinuating that the Coyotes have avoided meeting with city officials to discuss the state of the team and its finances. These claims are based on their difficulty in scheduling meetings with majority owner Andrew Barroway. The only problem with that is that Barroway isn’t the Chairman of the Board or the Managing Partner of the team. Those titles both belong to Anthony LeBlanc, who has been more than accessible and accommodating to Mayor Weiers. Weiers seems to be implying that the Coyotes are dodging him because Barroway, who runs a billion dollar business on the opposite end of the country, hasn’t dropped what he was doing to fly to Arizona to meet with the Mayor to discuss topics that could be better left to LeBlanc, the man Barroway put in charge to handle that very thing.
Weiers seems to be doing everything in his power to paint the Coyotes in a bad light and make them appear to be shady in their dealings. The more he tries to do so, however, the worse he makes himself and the City of Glendale look. Tonight’s meeting is just another example of that.
But I think that tonight’s meeting is more than that. Reports are already surfacing that the City of Glendale would be willing to renegotiate a more favorable lease. So it would appear that this whole thing is nothing more than a shakedown to try and coerce the Coyotes into renegotiating a lease that’s more favorable to the city.
Time will tell, but I don’t see this ending well for the City of Glendale. What remains to be seen is what effect it will have on the Coyotes.
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