No violation:

An inquiry by the state Attorney General’s Office finds that four Glendale City Council members did not violate the state’s Open Meeting Law before their vote on a controversial deal with the Arizona Coyotes.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has ruled that four Glendale City Council members did not violate the state’s Open Meeting Law prior to approving a 2013 arena-management agreement with the Arizona Coyotes.

Christopher Munns, Arizona assistant attorney general, said in a March 30 letter that current council members Gary Sherwood and Sam Chavira and former council members Manny Martinez and Yvonne Knaack did not illegally discuss the city’s position on the agreement in the days before it was approved in July 2013. All four voted for the deal.

A violation relating to the Coyotes agreement could have voided council action on the deal and forced the council to vote again to approve or reject it.

Munns warned the Glendale council members to avoid situations that might undermine public confidence in the openness of city government.

“While the evidence does not support the allegation, the circumstances of this case create significant concern about the manner of communications between Council members,” Munns wrote in his letter to Williams Sims III, an attorney representing the Glendale elected officials.

The Open Meeting Law issue involved a brief meeting June 28, 2013, of council members Sherwood and Knaack in her car on a cellphone call with Nick Wood, an attorney representing the Coyotes on the deal.

Sherwood in an e-mail the next day to Martinez said, “Sammy (Chavira) is already on board as he was with us last night” and closed the note by writing, “Manny, please delete this email after you’ve read it.”

This suggested the four council members, a quorom of the seven-member council, were privately conducting city business. All council business must be conducted in open meetings that have been properly announced.

The e-mail also suggested that Sherwood was trying to eliminate any written trace of his correspondence.

In early October, Knaack, Sherwood and Chavira each issued notarized statements about their interactions before the council vote on the Coyotes deal July 2, 2013.

Knaack said she had no discussion of the substance of the agreement, only the timing, in conferring with Sherwood and Wood.

Sherwood said he advised Martinez to delete his e-mail to limit its distribution since it included comments about top city officials. There was still a record of the e-mail on the city’s server, he noted.

Sherwood also said the comment about Chavira being “with us last night” referred to his supporting the position of Sherwood, Knaack and Martinez on the Coyotes deal rather than physically being with Sherwood and Knaack during their phone call with Wood.

Chavira said he did not remember any conversation with Sherwood “that would lead him to believe that I had agreed to support” the Coyotes deal.

“I knew that we didn’t do anything wrong,” Chavira said after the state’s ruling. “I’m happy that that is behind us.”

Mayor Jerry Weiers, who opposed the deal, said he filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office last July to investigate a possible violation by the four council members in response to residents’ concerns. “I wanted to present it to the Attorney General’s Office and allow them to make their decision,” Weiers said. “They determined there was no infractions, no violations ... Now let’s close it and move on.”

Sherwood, Knaack and Martinez could not be reached for comment.