Glendale mayor won’t ‘get down into the gutter’ with Arizona Cardinals over Super Bowl planning

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Super Bowl XLIX is set for February at University of Phoenix stadium, but the city’s mayor is trying to avoid getting into a war of words before kickoff.

Mayor Jerry Weiers said the city continues to prepare for the big game.

“What we have to do is focus and make certain that when the Super Bowl is played here, that my city is ready to have it — that we have our public safety in place, and that we do everything we can to have the safest, best game possible,” Weiers said.

But Arizona Cardinals President Michael Bidwill claims that Glendale isn’t playing ball, especially when it comes to getting hotels near the stadium to charge their regular room rates during the Super Bowl. Bidwill alleged that several of them are gouging their rates. In a recent interview with 12 News, he also attacked Glendale over comments he said city officials made about hosting the 2008 Super Bowl.

“Recently, they’ve been telling people that they lost money on the Super Bowl, which is a bunch of malarkey,” Bidwill said. “They were telling people after that Super Bowl that they made a lot of money, and that they had about $13 million worth of media exposure to the city of Glendale.”

Bidwill’s not the only one. Recently, Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee CEO Jay Parry said Glendale has some issues it needs to address in order to make the big game a success in February.

Weiers is refusing to respond to Bidwill and get into an argument with the Cardinals.

“I’m not going to get down into the gutter. I’m just not going to do that,” Weiers said. “I know that the city has worked as hard as we can — where we’ve been allowed to participate.”

And Glendale is only being “allowed” to participate in so much, meaning many of the Super Bowl-related events that were held in the city in 2008 are now scheduled to be in downtown Phoenix and other areas of the Valley. The actual game itself, and the preceding NFL Pro Bowl, are about the only events being staged in Glendale.

But Weiers refused to criticize the Cardinals.

“A lot of the things that have happened are some old sores, and I’m not the guy that wants to rip the scabs off of the old sores,” he said. “We’ve done everything that we’re supposed to do. There’s some hurt feelings. There’s some things that have been said. But I’m just not going to get down into the gutter and recognize some of the things that have been said, because it doesn’t do anybody any good.”