Gilbert: Awarding of park bid was legal

Gilbert officials said mistakes were made, but no laws were broken, when the town hired Big League Dreams to conduct a feasibility study three years ago that recommended a recently opened sports park now being operated by that same company.

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"If I had known Big League Dreams was going to get the bid, I probably would have thought it wasn't a good idea," Mayor Steve Berman said Monday. "It probably was a mistake, now. It just created some misperceptions."

At least one local taxpayer advocacy group is questioning whether it was appropriate to pay Big League Dreams Consulting $90,000 in 2004 to conduct a feasibility study for a partnership between the town and a private company to operate a large sports park on town-owned land.

"Ideally, you would have someone else do the feasibility study," said Tom Jenney, executive director of the Arizona Federation of Taxpayers.

Town spokesman Greg Svelund said the move was a mistake, but he maintained that no laws were broken since Big League Dreams had no part in writing the request for proposals that laid out for would-be bidders what the town was looking for in the project.

Town Manager George Pettit said he personally wrote the "request for proposals" with help from town attorneys to make sure it stuck to what the town wanted.

Allowing anyone who participated in developing the request for proposals to then bid on the project would violate Gilbert law, Pettit said.

But that's not what happened, he said.

"They certainly tried," Pettit said of Big League Dreams representatives. "And I think there were any number of people who were trying to influence the content of the RFP."

However, the feasibility study was used in part to develop the request for proposals, which even cites the "report prepared by Big League Dreams Consulting LLC."

"They never touched a word in this thing," Pettit said. "The reason I have to be careful is they were clearly advocating their interests in wanting to make sure that somehow they were going to get an edge in their RFP; that's the nature of this sort of situation."

Big League Dreams was one of three firms that bid on the project.

The town paid $40 million to build Big League Dreams, which consists of eight replica ballfields, two restaurants, a planned indoor soccer field and batting cages at 4536 E. Elliot Road near Power Road.

Gilbert and Big League Dreams will share revenue beginning in the fourth year. That could range from $500,000 to $1 million annually.

The project has come under repeated fire since the park was originally estimated to cost $22 million but has ballooned to more than $40 million, including the addition of consultant fees, roadwork in front of the facility, and the cost of furniture.

But Gilbert and Big League Dreams are still negotiating changes in the revenue-sharing agreement, partially to make up for the cost increases, Councilman Don Skousen said.

Council members reached Monday said the town hired Big League Dreams to conduct the study that would later be used to develop the project's parameters because the company was deemed an authority on designing and operating large sports parks.

"If Big League Dreams was and is the national expert at putting together these kinds of parks, then they are potentially the right people to tell us how a park should be built," Councilwoman Joan Krueger said.

Krueger was not on the council in 2004 when it awarded the $90,000 contract to Big League Dreams to conduct the study, and she would not comment specifically on whether the move was appropriate.

But she said: "I would absolutely agree that we might look at it differently next time."

Skousen, who was on the council in 2004, said he doesn't see a problem with having the same company conduct the study and bid on the project.

"I understand that kind of being questioned," he said. "But I don't see a problem."

To Skousen, the arrangement was proper as long as Big League Dreams didn't prepare the report in a way that excluded other companies from pursuing the project.

"That's a tough question," he said. "In hindsight, maybe I would look at it differently today. But who better to look at a study than the people who (build) them?"