Late or not (they say not), organizers seeking to put a $324 million lease agreement between the City of Glendale and the Phoenix Coyotes to a November vote submitted their petition signatures today.
Just don’t expect the city to care.
“Their 30 days was up on July 9,” Glendale attorney Craig Tindall said earlier this week, as per the Arizona Republic. “If they turn in signatures after that, they’re going to be late and rejected for that reason.”
Organizers could still challenge the city’s rejection in court, but according to one expert, their chances of successfully challenging are slim.
“That’s a pretty uphill battle for these folks,” attorney Andy Gordon told the Republic. “I think they’re pretty clearly out of time.”
Yesterday, the city rejected another referendum initiative, this one related to a sales-tax hike that the city needs to help pay prospective Coyotes owner, Greg Jamison, to manage the city-owned Jobing.com Arena. Without that arena-management fee, there’s no sale and the team would likely have to move.
Should neither group challenge the rejections in court, attention will turn to the Goldwater Institute, the taxpayer watchdog group that’s still deciding whether it should sue the city for violating the state’s gift clause that forbids government subsidies to corporations.
Related: Doan’s agent says July 16 deadline is “off the table”