This year’s Super Bowl in New Jersey is less than a week away. The city of Glendale will host next year’s Super Bowl. The city is lobbying the Arizona legislature to pass a new bill that would reimburse cities for public-safety costs associated with a major event.
Brent Stoddard with the city of Glendale said large revenue generating activities like the Super Bowl provide tax dollars to the entire state. He said the state should help cities with such safety costs or risk losing large events in the future to other states.
“That’s not a position that anyone wants to be in. Certainly not the city of Glendale. We don’t want to be in that position," said Stoddard. "Which is why we are, simply because of the public safety costs, which are associated with those events. So, that’s why we are coming to the legislature right now, in this session, seeking to put into place a sustanable model in place in trying to solve that problem before it becomes one.”
The city said it spent over $2 million to provide security when the city hosted the Super Bowl in 2008. Stoddard is predicting safety costs could be more than that for next year’s game.
The “Major Event and Public Safety Reimbursement” bill would repay cities up to $4 million to cover security. The bill was introduced by House Majority Leader David Gowan of Sierra Vista.