By Darren DaRonco
Arizona Daily Star
The Tucson City Council didn’t accept Rio Nuevo’s latest proposal to settle their long-standing dispute but didn’t reject it outright, either.
Instead, the council voted unanimously after a closed session to send a counteroffer back to the Rio Nuevo board with some unidentified changes.
“We all want this conflict to end to the benefit of our community, and we want it to end without a court settlement,” Councilwoman Karin Uhlich said during Tuesday’s meeting.
Uhlich said even though the offer from the board fell short in many ways, the key stumbling block was a “binding arbitration” clause stipulating that if the two sides can’t agree on the findings of two Rio Nuevo-commissioned audits, the city must agree to abide by an arbitrator’s ruling and essentially give up its legal rights to appeal.
