By Sam Kmack | Arizona Republic
Tempe’s $2.1 billion deal with the Arizona Coyotes will require voters to approve three separate ballot measures if it’s going to happen, the result of a new state law that dictates how propositions appear on election tickets.
Prop. 303 will likely be the most intuitive for voters. It asks voters to authorize Tempe to sell the Coyotes 46 acres of city-owned land west of Town Lake ― a piece of property that was long used as a landfill ― and approve the team’s planto build about 2,000 apartments, an NHL arena and an entertainment district on that site.
The other two largely procedural ballot measures ― Props. 301 and 302 ― serve more technical purposes, but their approval is still needed to make one of Tempe’s biggest and most divisive deals in recent history come to fruition.
“Together, 301, 302 and 303 will authorize all the necessary components of the development agreement,” said Coyotes CEO Xavier Gutierrez. “We have full confidence that Tempe voters will embrace all three propositions and the economic, community and environmental benefits the project will bring to the City of Tempe.”
