Phoenix Coyotes referendum effort falls short
- About 6,900 signatures were needed by Thursday
- Political action committee lacked the funding to reach required amount
- Drive's failure removes a hurdle for prospective Coyotes owner Greg Jamison
GLENDALE, Ariz. - An effort to put a multimillion-dollar hockey deal in front of Glendale voters failed to get enough signatures to make the ballot.
Political action committee Back to Sanity, led by Glendale residents Ken Jones and Francine Romesburg, initiated a referendum in late November, days after the Glendale City Council approved a controversial arena-management deal that would keep the Phoenix Coyotes in the city the next 20 years. The deal has the city paying the prospective Phoenix Coyotes buyer more than $300 million over the next two decades to manage the arena.
Back to Sanity failed to gather the roughly 6,900 signatures needed within the required 30 days. Jones would not release exact numbers, but said a team of about a dozen volunteers gathered more than half of the required amount.
Thursday was the deadline to turn in the signatures.
Glendale Deputy City Clerk Darcie McCracken called the task of collecting so many signatures "daunting."
"You'd almost need a couple thousand more just to be on the safe side," McCracken said.
Valid signatures must be collected from registered voters who live in the city.
Jones said the committee lacked the financial resources to reach the required number of signatures.
"As soon as we learned that money wasn't going to be available to us, we realized our chances were going to be pretty slim," said Jones, who estimated needing $16,000 to pay professional signature gatherers. "But we didn't quit trying until the last day."
The failure of the referendum removes a hurdle for Greg Jamison, the prospective Coyotes buyer.
Jamison is expected to purchase the team by Jan. 31 from the NHL, which has owned the Coyotes since 2009 after the former owner filed the franchise into bankruptcy.
Melissa Leu also writes for the Arizona Republic