'He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks': A legendary takedown of Suns owner Robert Sarver

The Suns and the City of Phoenix are in the midst of an ugly battle over a proposed $230 million renovation to Talking Sticks Arena, and local resident Greta Rogers is here to set them all straight.

There are conflicting reports about whether Suns owner Robert Sarver has threatened to leave Phoenix if taxpayers will not foot a $150 million bill for the renovations to the city-owned arena, but one thing is for sure: Rogers will not be strong-armed by a banker and his government henchmen.

“Mr. Sarver has done nothing to improve this team in the 14 years he’s owned it,” Rogers told the city council at a meeting with the arena issue on the agenda on Thursday. “He’s never funded or paid for two or three key players, which makes any professional sports team successful or on the road to success. He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks. And you have been negotiating with this kind of person? Shame on each and all of you. And upon you, Ed. I thought your principles were higher and better than this. We are not in the business of paying taxes to support private enterprise, especially not an entertainment enterprise. They can support themselves or fail on their own lack of diligence.”

He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks. Greta, don’t hurt him. What a speech. What a woman. We need some disgruntled Suns employee to get this on the Jumbotron at Talking Sticks Arena — STAT.

The city’s negotiations with the Suns

The Ed who Rogers refers to is Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher, who, along with interim Mayor Thelda Williams, is reportedly trying to expedite approval of a deal that would put the city on the hook for 65 percent of the renovation ($150 million) in addition to $2 million annually in maintenance over the next 15 years, all without properly outlining the deal to the city council and before a special mayoral election in March, when Kate Gallego — a vocal opponent of the deal — is expected to win.

“Sarver did nothing wrong here,” city councilman Sal DiCiccio told the Burns & Gambo radio show on Thursday. “I know he’s always getting beat up, but the fact of the matter is, he’s done everything right. The ones who really screwed this deal up has been the City of Phoenix itself. … They’ve done everything in secret. They’ve hidden all the reports. They make it impossible, even for someone like myself, to be able to get the reports and the documentation we need to make a logical decision.”

Despite being the biggest benefactor among six city council members who have accepted campaign contributions from Sarver and Suns management, DiCiccio is currently one of the no votes who could kill the deal. Zuercher and Williams need five of the council’s eight votes for it to pass, and they now have three, which is why they are hoping to delay the vote until January. By then, they’ll hope to sway two more votes in their favor before Gallego gets elected and demands Sarver pay the full share.

DiCiccio could be one of those two votes. He is currently in favor of splitting the renovation 50-50, which would put taxpayers on the hook for $115 million. His view is logical. This is a battle between landlord and tenant, since the city is leasing the arena to the Suns, and he just wants to know which line items each party is responsible for. The example he used in his radio interview was a $2 million charge for kitchen equipment, and the city has not provided documentation of a contract between the city and team that would outline whether that cost should be assigned to the landlord or tenant.

The perspective of fellow city council member Vania Guevara, which she outlined in a recent blog post entitled, “Why I can’t support this arena deal,” is also an understandable one: “Beyond just bad optics, it’s bad policy to ask residents to pay more for the basics while simultaneously funding a renovation for a team estimated to be worth nearly $1.3 billion.” It’s hard to argue that taxpayers should fund any plan that lines a wealthy sports owner’s pockets, let alone one that has them footing most of the bill.

Robert Sarver’s alleged threat to move the Suns

This discussion became national news on Wednesday, when The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts reported an alleged threat by Sarver to move the Suns to Las Vegas or Seattle if Phoenix didn’t meet his demands. Roberts ran a correction on Thursday, saying instead that her source — a city council member — did not say Sarver specifically cited those two other cities; he did still threaten to move.

“He said, ‘If you guys are not going to vote for this, let me go, just let me go somewhere else,'” Roberts wrote in an updated piece on Thursday. “He said, ‘I want out. If you’re not going to build my stadium then I want out.’ He did not specifically say Seattle or Las Vegas but that was my understanding.”

The Suns seized on the retraction, sharing the link from their Twitter account with this summary:

Meanwhile, Suns CEO Jason Rowley took to the media, denying the existence of any such threat:

And the Suns also posted on their Twitter account a video of Sarver vowing not to move the team:

Except, it’s pretty clear the Suns are threatening to move if the city doesn’t pay for the renovation. Per to their own accounting of this mess, the team’s first choice is to stay in Phoenix with taxpayers footing the bill. Plan B is to remain in Arizona and move outside the city. Plan C? Moving outside the state. As Rowley acknowledged, via Roberts: “We would look for another home here in the Valley but if that didn’t happen, if there wasn’t any option here in the Valley, what’s the other option after that?”

In his radio interview, DiCiccio put a finer point on it: “It’s completely logical for him to be out there looking for other sites. If he’s not out there looking for other sites, I think he’s not a very good businessperson, frankly. We have not come to an agreement on our end, so he should be coming up with different ideas. I don’t know why people are getting their panties up in a twist on this.”

Then, Zuercher: “I don’t consider it a threat. They’ve talked about what their options are. Robert has never threatened me. He’s mentioned that there are other cities that are looking for NBA teams.”

So, yeah, Sarver is lording a potential move over the city, and the council is putting a positive spin on it, all without giving actual taxpayers a say in whether or not they want to pay for the renovations. Between now and whenever the vote takes place, the only option city residents have at this point is to make their opinions known at council meetings, and nobody has articulated it better than Rogers.

We should also note that Rogers is far from the first person to criticize Sarver for his ability to oversee a competitive product and willingness to pay for one, as evidenced by a recent ESPN report that pegged Sarver as the NBA’s worst owner — somehow worse than the New York Knicks’ James Dolan.

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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach

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