Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo’s dreams of getting $200 million in tax kickbacks plus free land for a new arena in Tempe might be about to go down in flames, and not because the building could get in the way of planes trying to land. No, the Tempe city council apparently may vote the project down — with, according to PHNX’s Craig Morgan, “three yes votes, two no votes and two votes that are undecided, but leaning toward no” — because they’re concerned about doing business with a guy who stiffed his current city on tax payments for months:
Two sources with knowledge of the situation said that the Coyotes do not currently have the votes in the Tempe City Council to approve the project and move forward, although it should be noted that the proposal did not die in a recent executive session in December…
“The Coyotes certainly aren’t doing themselves any favors with the negative news stories,” one source said. “I would imagine if another negative story comes up on (owner Alex) Meruelo or the organization or their business practices, it probably will die. Those stories hurt tremendously.”
Note that that’s just two anonymous sources alleging this, and we have no idea what their self-interest is; they could be, say, staffers for councilmembers opposed to the arena, for all we know. But clearly somebody is trying to send a message to Meruelo that vindictively screwing over your current city is not the way to go about making friends in the next city over, and it’s possible that could be enough to tip the balance toward Tempe saying no to his arena demands. Or it could be just enough for those undecided votes to say “keep your nose clean, Alex, or else we’ll have to vote against you,” which I guess counts as throwing your weight around, local-elected-official style.
The PHNX article goes on to say that “proponents worry that if the deal is turned down, the Coyotes could pursue a deal with the nearby Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community,” which would, according to “a source” (one of the same ones? a different one? see why writing stories based solely on unnamed sources gets problematic fast, Craig?) “be right on Tempe’s border so Tempe would get all the problems including the traffic, and get none of the revenue.”
Of course, Tempe would also get the land back and be able to use it for something else that wouldn’t require more than $200 million in tax kickbacks, which might actually be preferable. Though then Tempe would have to do without people getting to wander through a Coyotes-logo-shaped fountain and talk to sofa cushions, and where would they be then?
I really marvel at the fact that the writer of the original piece appears to believe that it is the news stories about Meruelo’s dishonest business practices rather than the practices themselves that is creating the issue.
Damned media anyhow. What’s the point of being a billionaire (sort of) if you can’t screw some of the great unwashed over once in a while?
As Dubya said, ‘here they are, the most productive members of society’…. just looking for a $200m in tax money plus another $50-100m in free land (plus whatever they ask for after they get that stuff, of course) to support a business that is worth somewhere around $400m, maybe – if you don’t count the fact that it loses about $30m a year on operations, and the nervous nellies are about to torpedo this whole wonderful franchise and it’s glorious history over a few hundred million measly tax dollars.
It’s a disgrace, I tell you. A national disgrace.
He might not be wrong. The council might be more willing to do a deal with a tax cheat if most of their constituents didn’t know he was a tax cheat.
Zero-depth splash pads are all the rage in Arizona and are far from sanitary.
It’s beyond astonishing that any public official could be on the fence about going into business with a guy who has already demonstrated what it’s going to be like for the city – a constant battle of “Hey, pay up” and “Hey, make me.” Once the facility is built, it will be an exact replay of Glendale, right down to the moment Tempe finally realizes it’s better off to eat your losses and do something else with the arena. Well, good luck to them. I’m lucky to live in a suburb that hasn’t yet decided to get in on this bonanza – but city boundaries are not a barrier against stupidity, so we must remain ever vigilant.
“…a constant battle of “Hey, pay up” and “Hey, make me.””
I wonder what ‘contributions’ will find there way to those two undecided councilmembers.
Not to mention the constant public bashing the team and NHL have given Glendale over the years in their efforts to extract more money from city taxpayers. I know we’re all supposed to believe that these billionaires are geniuses at running businesses, but Meruelo being a deadbeat on remitting ~$1 million in sales tax that was already collected is pretty f’in stupid anytime, let alone when you’re trying to hop in the sack with a new city.
Pro-Coyotes fans trying to sway the two ‘no’ votes on the arena proposal.
Approve the Arizona Coyotes for Their New Tempe Arena
https://www.change.org/p/approve-the-arizona-coyotes-for-their-new-tempe-arena
Did a teenager write this petition?
“If the Coyotes were to get their Tempe arena approved, this would improve ticket sales majorly. It would improve the revenue in surrounding areas as well, like Scottsdale…”
“Improve the revenue” in Scottsdale? Not sure what that means, but they seem to be doing just fine without it. It’s also amusing to me that so many people seem to think that this is going to solve all of team’s problems. That they’ll automatically sell out from now on, that they won’t have the organizational chaos they’ve had a majority of their time here, and that the same guy who kicked the can on a minor sum of taxes that had already been collected is all of a sudden going to open his wallet. I want whatever these people are smoking.
Maybe not much older than a teenager. Also, from New Jersey?
https://www.facebook.com/cameron.leith76
Has a Change dot org petition ever changed anything ever?
Well, based on the comments, she has corrected some things, including changing the rendering of the arena (which was from Mr LeBlanc’s failed ASU attempt) to the new one.
I guess teenagers can learn, after all.
I’ve lobbied for years to have a Change dot org petition to shut down Change dot org, if that helps.
https://www.tempe.gov/government/communication-and-media-relations/tempe-11
Coyotes talk is on right now (started at 5:30pm Mountain Time, or 7:30pm Eastern).