Special Report: Anti-Coyotes Petition Not Turned In

According to the City of Glendale today was the day that Ken Jones and Joe Cobb were supposed to submit their petition to get the lease agreement for Jobing.com Arena on November's ballot. Mr. Jones held a press conference today at the very library where he has been trying to collect signatures saying that he does not yet have the required signatures and he stated that he should have until July 16th to turn into the signatures, a position supported in a Goldwater Institute letter. The City's Attorney responded in his own letter stating that since the requests weren't submitted until the 20th of June, and since the full and correct copy of the ordinance was available it was not required to give them an extension that they would have to give if the ordinance hadn't been submitted.

What does this mean?

Mr. Jones stated in his press conference that he would continue to seek signatures, and George Fallar and Glendale First! have stated in the past that they would continue to do what they can to educate people about the lease agreement and why they shouldn't sign the petition. If Jones and Cobb do manage to get the required signatures, and with the great work of Glendale First! that hopefully won't happen, they will have to take this to court, again, in order to get the city to accept them. I am no legal expert but it seems unlikely that the courts will side against the city on this one.

In my estimation there aren't any more roadblocks on the City's end for the deal to go through, so now its up to Greg Jamison and the NHL to follow through on their end. I'm sure they know that the chances of Cobb and Jones getting the lease agreement on the ballot are pretty small at this point so there isn't really a need to sit back and wait. Another person who probably knows that is our Captain Shane Doan, he said he was waiting to see how this was going to turn out and it seems like it turned out in the Coyotes favor. It isn't over yet folks, but things seem to be going our way.