[troutman]

Glendale city council to force July 2 vote on Coyotes' future
http://www.foxsportsarizona.com/nhl/...99&feedID=3545

Some time during the Glendale City Council’s executive session on Tuesday afternoon, the coalition of council members in favor of a Jobing.com Arena lease deal with Renaissance Sports and Entertainment (RSE) fell apart.

They lost faith in all of the information they'd been comfortable with -- swayed by a communications blitz of repackaged concerns spearheaded by Mayor Jerry Weiers.

There was no way the council could produce deal points for a one-week public vetting prior to a July 2 vote on the future of the Phoenix Coyotes because there was no deal. The deal was dead.

Meanwhile, just out of a series of meetings with the NHL in New York, one of RSE’s principals, Anthony LeBlanc, was celebrating his 43rd birthday when he got the news. Feeling betrayed and utterly spent after a lengthy effort to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, LeBlanc instructed his attorneys to pull his arena-lease bid off the table.

With Renaissance out of the picture, less than two days before the NHL Board of Governors was due to meet, the fate of the Phoenix Coyotes was sealed. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was told it was time for Plan B – whatever that might be.

Then the Coyotes ownership saga did what it always does: It veered in another direction.

Somehow, in the last hours of Tuesday and the wee hours of Wednesday morning, everything changed. The deal gained new life, its supporters decided to give it one more go and on Wednesday morning, the deal points were being prepared for release to the public.

Sources told FOX Sports Arizona on Wednesday that council member Gary Sherwood and Vice Mayor Yvonne Knaack will force a vote on the deal on July 2, a tactic that is well within their rights. Four yes votes are required for passage in what is believed to a make-or-break vote for the team's future in Glendale.