Economist: Glendale prime example of city heading in wrong direction

PHOENIX — Glendale’s decision to cancel a lease agreement with the Arizona Coyotes is one made by a city headed in the wrong direction, a local economist said.

Last year, Jim Rounds with Elliott D. Pollack and Company saw Glendale as an up-and-coming city.

“Over the past six months, I’ve never seen a community do a 180 like Glendale has in terms of negative publicity,” he said. “I still feel that it’s a great community and they can turn things around but it’s imperative they get their act together.”

Rounds said the public battle between Glendale and the Coyotes is just the latest in series of bad public relation moves by city that could start hampering efforts to attract new companies and jobs.

“Any one of the Coyotes stories won’t derail Glendale’s future,” he said. “But if we keep hearing these negative stories every month, or every other month, they’re going to have some real problems. I don’t know if what Glendale is doing with the Coyotes is good or bad, but they can’t afford to do anything wrong because they’ve already done a number of things that brought negative publicity over the past several months.”

Rounds said that includes the squabble between Glendale and the Arizona Cardinals over parking spaces during the Super Bowl, which could have been handled behind closed doors.