When the Glendale City Council gave the green light to a $197 million Phoenix Coyotes deal in December, it seemed the team's future in the Valley was secured.

More than a month later, Glendale has not yet completed the deal.

Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute is weighing whether to sue, scrutinizing the hockey agreement to see if it unconstitutionally relies on taxpayer funds to subsidize private enterprise.

And two city-commissioned studies released after the council voted raise questions about whether Glendale can afford the debt it will incur in the deal with Coyotes buyer Matthew Hulsizer.

Glendale officials dismiss the concerns as they move forward to complete the transaction.

The city must sell at least $100 million in bonds and transfer the money to Hulsizer. The Chicago investment trader plans to use the money, plus his own, to purchase the team from the National Hockey League.

Glendale officials expect to sell the bonds soon.

Under Glendale's plan, the city would pay its borrowing by charging parking fees of $5 to $20 per car during hockey games, concerts and other events at Jobing.com Arena.

However, two city-commissioned reports come to widely different conclusions about how much parking revenue Glendale could collect.

One study shows Glendale would reap $251 million over 30 years, or exactly enough, at about a 6 percent interest rate, to cover the bond payments with interest.

The other shows Glendale would fall far short, collecting between $60 million and $85 million in the first 25 years. The consultant did not calculate longer.

The consequences if Glendale struggled to pay its bond debt are unclear.

Glendale will back the bonds with its excise taxes. Those revenues pay for city services and operations.

If parking fees lagged, the city could cut services to residents or raise taxes or fees to cover the payments.

Glendale officials insist residents would not be impacted. The city would seek other revenue streams, they said, such as raising parking fees or creating a special taxing district around the sports stadiums to raise enough money to pay the debt.

Reports not seen

The council, in a 5-2 vote, approved the Coyotes deal after discussions about parking revenue but without seeing the studies.

Mayor Elaine Scruggs said information presented to the council behind closed doors "demonstrated that this transaction is in the economic best interests of the city."

Scruggs said if that was not the case, she and other council members would not have voted for the deal.

Councilman Manny Martinez agreed. He said staffers privately discussed study results with the council, thoroughly enough for Martinez to feel comfortable supporting the agreement.

Council members Joyce Clark and Phil Lieberman, the two who voted against it, said they wished they had seen copies of the studies to draw their own conclusions.

Clark only remembers hearing about the study by Phoenix consultant TL Hocking & Associates that showed Glendale could afford the deal.

The study with lower numbers was issued by national parking analyst Walker Parking Consultants.

"We never even heard about the Walker report," Clark said.

If the council had seen the research, she said, they would have been able to ask staff "why they thought the Hocking study was sufficient."

Informed public

The Goldwater Institute said residents should have seen the parking reports before council voted.

"We and the public have a right to see everything that the city is looking at to justify why this is a good deal for the city," Goldwater attorney Carrie Ann Sitren said.

The Arizona Republic requested such reports at the council meeting, but a month passed without the city filling the records request. The Republic obtained the studies from the Goldwater Institute, which received the documents from the city two days after the vote.

The Phoenix-based institute is in an ongoing lawsuit with the city, pushing for the release of public records related to Coyotes negotiations.

"To assume that the city can post all documents, many of which are not public records or are protected from disclosure by law, is unrealistic," Glendale spokeswoman Julie Frisoni said.

She said Glendale took steps "to ensure all involved understood the key aspects of the agreement."

Four days before the vote, the city posted the agreement online, along with a fact sheet. City staff then gave an hour-plus presentation at the council meeting about the deal. There was no mention of the parking studies.