By Laurie Roberts
The Arizona Republic
It took just 22 minutes for the Glendale City Council to agree to shell out $180 million to build an arena for the Phoenix Coyotes. City leaders had spent the previous weekend urging then-Coyotes owner Steve Ellman to dump Scottsdale — where skeptical city officials weren’t buying his pitch — and come west.
In a flash, Glendale’s dazzling dreams of hockey grandeur were coming true.
“It truly is a historical event,” a beaming Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs said that April evening in 2001.
Turns out Scruggs was right.
Eleven years later, the city is in a financial hole of historic proportion as a result of its sports-crazed leaders.
