Coyotes seek to force $3.75 million Glendale payment

Attorneys for the Arizona Coyotes filed a motion Thursday to force Glendale to make its $3.75 million payment to the team.

The Coyotes are asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dawn Bergin to deny Glendale's June 17 motion that the city be allowed to skip its fourth-quarter payment to the team or put the funds into an escrow account until the contract dispute between the two is settled.

The Glendale City Council voted June 10 to kill the Coyotes arena management agreement. The Coyotes went to court two days later and convinced Judge Bergin to grant a temporary restraining order that kept the contract in force.

RELATED: Coyotes seek to force $3.75 million payment from Glendale

In their motion, the Coyotes' attorneys from Snell & Wilmer argued that allowing the city to skip the payment would undermine the temporary restraining order.

"By seeking to avoid paying for (the Coyotes') performance through July 1, 2015, the City basically asks the Court to confer a multi-million dollar 'windfall' on the City," according to the motion.

Glendale in court documents last week argued that it has the right to terminate the Coyotes agreement because a state conflict-of-interest law was violated by two former city employees. The city alleges former city attorney Craig Tindall and Julie Frisoni, a former communications director and assistant city manager, were both involved in convincing the City Council to approve the Coyotes agreement in July 2013.

Tindall went to work for the Coyotes less than two months later. Frisoni left the city in April and the Coyotes hired her as a consultant last month for an international junior hockey tournament bid.

The state conflict-of-interest law is intended to prevent a government employee from benefiting from his or her involvement in a contract by going to work for the other party in that contract.

The Coyotes' motion said that Glendale never raised the conflict issue even though it has been aware that Tindall went to work for the team in September 2013 and the Coyotes informed Glendale in April that Frisoni had been hired to work on the junior hockey tournament bid.

The motion also argued that Glendale is using the conflict-of-interest law to force the Coyotes to renegotiate the agreement rather than as a tool to remedy any actual public harm.

Glendale's arena management agreement requires the city to pay the Coyotes $15 million annually for 15 years in return for $500,000 a year to lease Gila River Arena and a share of the ticket and parking revenue for hockey and concerts. The Coyotes paid the city nearly $6 million for the 2013-14 season.

Glendale's fourth-quarter payment of $3.75 million is due July 1.

The city's outside counsel, Cynthia Ricketts, argued in her motion last week that the Coyotes risked not being paid for its services by hiring Tindall and Frisoni.

On June 11, Glendale retained Ricketts of Sacks, Ricketts & Case with legal fees ranging from $175per hour for paralegals to $450 for partners.

The Coyotes and Glendale are scheduled for a pretrial conference Monday.