The Jacksonville Jaguars

[KenFSU]

Completely agree that someone needs to lose their job over this.

Regardless of who is wrong or right about the SMG situation, Khan has really gone above and beyond thus far to prove that he is committed to Jacksonville, and it's just such a total slap in the face to send out such a letter when a simple phone call would do.

Let's not kid ourselves, Khan clearly has the long-term leverage in the situation, not the city, and to threaten to terminate the only thing beside a handshake deal keeping the NFL in the city, that is just unforgiveable.

Heads need to roll.

Guarantee they would if any of us pulled something similar at our jobs.

[BridgeTroll]

People outside the loop of this contract and the pisspoor corrupt performance on the part of SMG might not realize how badly the vendor has performed with the taxpayer money, but the City has the right to choose the Vendor.

Clearly this issue should have been dealt with face to face negotiation.  What is the evidence of SMG piss poor performance?  At least with regard to Everbank?  I find it hard to believe Khan (or Weaver) would stand for piss poor (and) corrupt performance.  Since Khan is new here perhaps he is unaware of the perceived issues with SMG and Jacksonville.  There must be a reason Khan does not wish to change... or at least be forced into change by Jacksonville...

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

besides, it's in the lease agreement that the Jags have final say over who manages the stadium. 

Is there any reason that SMG can't stay behind to manage just everbank and allow the city to use another company for the other venues?

[Tacachale]

Interesting how things happens. Brown had to basically beg her to stay six months ago. It's doubtful this can all be pinned on her, though.

How so?

She has the files in her building to reference.  There is no excuse for not making sure she was right before, essentially, evicting the Jags.  This has the appearance of someone using a sledgehammer to push in a thumbtack - and she should be dealt with exactly the way she dealt with the Jags.

It's highly unlikely the mayor wasn't in the loop (if he wasn't, then it's even worse). In addition, the mix-up over the selection procedure is the fault of poor communication between different city departments. More screw-ups went into this beyond one person.

[duvaldude08]

The things that baffles me is that Khan and the team president knew more about the contract the the city attorney and the mayor did, and they just got here! What does that REALLY say about out city??? How did they know about the the amendment and no one else did. It could have been hanlded better period. Cindy could have called and straighten things out first instead of starting a bunch of crap.

[justinthered]

It looks like the Jaguars made their pick and then the city sent them a default letter. How are the Jaguars the bad guys here?

"The contract between the Jaguars and the city says that selection must be done jointly, while an amendment to the request for proposals lays out a process in which the city and the team make their pick and then meet to discuss."

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/sports/football/jaguars/2012-05-30/story/jacksonville-withdraws-letter-had-shocked-and-perplexed#ixzz1wSmxSuKH

[Tacachale]

The Jags are certainly not at fault here. It's a communications breakdown that the city mishandled badly. The Jags were not trying to force the city to accept the SMG bid, they were following a procedure that the city agreed to, but of which the mayor and GC were apparently unaware. The whole thing was totally avoidable and silly.

[comncense]

Even IF SMG has a bad history in how they handle the venues they are in charge of, I can imagine the backlash Mayor Brown will get if he choose the other company over SMG. I've already seen a ton of people upset, saying he's basically trying to scratch the back of a friend by replacing SMG with the other management company. To kill that backlash, I'd just go with what's going to make the Jaguars happy and prove the skeptics wrong.

[duvaldude08]

Khan is actually upset that this even hit the media. This should have been handled behind the scene. It was really a misunderstanding that got blown out or proportion and makes the city look really bad IMO. Once we report stuff like this, it hits all the media outlets including NFL.com. We look bad as it is, and stuff like this makes us look even worse.

[Wacca Pilatka]

The things that baffles me is that Khan and the team president knew more about the contract the the city attorney and the mayor did, and they just got here!

Granted, they also knew more about Tim Tebow's contract than the Jets did.  I'm picking up on a theme here.

[tufsu1]

The things that baffles me is that Khan and the team president knew more about the contract the the city attorney and the mayor did, and they just got here!

I think that's because they are the ones who did the amendment...it was only issued on May 9th

[duvaldude08]

An amendment to the request for proposals, however, lays out a process in which the city and the team make their pick and then meet to discuss.

The letter by Laquidara withdrawing the default charge said she was unaware of the amendment, something of which the mayor said he was also unaware.

That amendment was issued May 9 and signed by two employees from the city's procurement department. There is no indication in the document that the General Counsel's Office was involved in preparing it, although Laquidara describes it in her letter on Wednesday as being agreed to by one of her attorneys, Karen Chastain.

The amendment was drawn up after the Jaguars complained that they had been left out of the loop.

In her Wednesday letter, Laquidara said she had been working under the terms agreed to between her and the team's general counsel a month ago, after the team complained about the city moving ahead without it.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/sports/football/jaguars/2012-05-30/story/city-withdraws-letter-shocked-and-perplexed-jaguars-owner#ixzz1wTLdrLpa

The city really goofed on this. Sounds like the amendment was made when the city left them out of the negoitating process, as outlined in the lease. One of the attorneys amended the agreement and signed off on it, and communicated that to no one. Damn shame our city is being ran like this. As Khan stated, the city are the one's who actually defaulted on the contract.

[comncense]

So Mayor Brown will be on 1010XL at 5:30 today with Frangie to discuss the "communications mishap".

[comncense]

^ Would have rather seen him not sidestep the issue at hand. Sounds like PR message

[danem]

This whole thing makes me wonder what other kinds of business relationships with the city actually went away quietly due to these sorts of misunderstandings.