Wouldn't dipping in to a reserve fund to finance MH's purchase be even more odious in the eyes of GWI? I'm assuming that these reserve fund are comprised mainly of property tax revenues.
I'm curious about your assertion that they would have nothing left to argue.
COG money is COG money.
It goes back to one of the other original arguments of the City is overpaying for what it is receiving in return. This also does not address the up to 97 million they are gong to pay MH for the arena management.
1. Given that Hulsizer is guaranteeing that COG will receive value equalling not less than $75M in NPV, it is impossible to overpay (even though, under the gift clause,
there is no requirement that the values be equal).
So GSC, are you saying that the COG taking from a fund that is from TAXPAYER money sounds like a totally legit deal and should be done and GWI wouldn't fight that?
If the rainy day account has been built up over time from taxes, that would actually be far worse in the GWI eyes of using taxpayer money to fund MH.
See above. Taxpayer money is taxpayer money. If they raise it through a bond offering, it is still taxpayer money that must repay that debt. From a gift clause perspective, it is thoroughly irrelevant. If the parking revenues, etc can pay back a bond issue, they can pay back draws from a COG bank account just as readily. One may argue that those revenues will be insufficient (and be wrong in doing so), but it makes no difference where the monies originally came from. It is not even a question worth debating.
If recent media reports are true, the NHL is "out" of the negotiations and have more or less asked Glendale and Hulsizer to finalize a deal pronto, or they are moving on. So, that means that Hulsizer either has to come up with more money, or Glendale has to bite the bullet and either sell the bonds at whatever rate it takes, or perhaps directly fund this. But I think that if Glendale contemplated digging $200 million out of the Enterprise Fund, they would have done that by now (remember, they have not identified a source for the "arena management fees" for the next 5.5. years, and beyond). I just can't see that happening, but I guess one can't really know what Glendale is likely to do.
I am still at a loss to explain why Glendale did not try to get a declarative judgment to neuter the GWI's challenge if they are serious about getting this done. They have now had 2.5 months to do so since the GWI's letter to bond brokers. Moreover, it is amazing to me that they did not go straight to the bond market after the lease approved on December 14. It was a full 6 weeks after that when the GWI sent a letter to the bond brokers.
It is strange - almost like a "taxpayer watchdog" deceived them by saying in meetings that they had no problems with the deal and then lowered the boom, huh? Nah, GWI would never do that, would they?
It never fails to amaze me how people do not seem to get the difficult position that COG is in here. If they are required to get a declarative judgment for this, then what about the next thing that GWI wishes to compalin about in COG (and yes, there will be more)? Do they have to get a declarative judgment for that as well? do they - an elected body, mind you - then have to vet everything they do past the GWI and their falsified version of
Turken v.
Gordon? The fact that they receive derision from people who are in no way able to appreciate the difficulty of the position used to amaze me, but it just makes me chuckle now.
Regarding the time taken to get to the bond market, there are many steps that need to be taken in order to accomplish this.
Perhaps there are som statutory restrictions from using the Enterprise fund. Who knows? I imagine that has been an opportunity they have considered.
I'm pretty sure giving someone an overpayment on a service that on average is far less could fall under the gift clause. Why overpay when on average that service is far less $$, especially with outright awarding a service on a city owned property and not bringing it to tender.
Glendale has a bid opportunities site, they can tender any services off that
http://www.ci.glendale.az.us/purchasing/bidopportunities.cfm
no wonder GWI calls foul on the deal.
Since Hulsizer is bringing an NHL team as an anchor tenant and the anchor tenant will not come unless the arena management is part of the deal, they would have to run a tender which involves the other tenderers bringing an NHL team (or equivalent anchor tenant) as well, in order for it to be apples to apples and provide the same benefit to the COG. Since this is not available, the tender option is moot. Anyone who has thought that this is a tender situation has not really thought this through too thoroughly.
Regarding overpaying, a deal which simply pays for reimbursable expenses, without markup, is
BY DEFINITION not overpaying. moreover, the deal would not even cover the basic arena expenses of MH, as i demonstrated a few threads ago right at the beginning of the thread. MH will be $11-13M short of having all of his direct arena expenses covered, and that is without doing anything (like a huge marketing push) beyond what Moyes did.
And no I'm not on crack.
