Scottsdale, Glendale assess failure's cost

Scottsdale got SkySong, a fledging office park with a giant playground canopy for $120 million. Glendale got the Phoenix Coyotes, an arena and Westgate City Center for $230 million, a whopping debt that is $50 million more than the city's original bet to lure NHL hockey across town. The man in the middle of this development power play was Steve Ellman. Just this week, Ellman lost ownership of much of Westgate next to the Jobing. com Arena where the Coyotes are on thin ice for staying in the desert. Former Scottsdale City Councilman David Ortega, an Ellman critic, said the financial wreckage is devastating for Scottsdale and Glendale. "(Ellman) left a trail of people who will be paying the price for this for a long time," Ortega said. Ellman, in default on about $300 million in loans related to Westgate, did not return calls seeking comment. The ongoing collapse of the Ellman empire, as reported by The Republic's Rebekah Sanders, and the collateral damage raise some intriguing questions about decisions made a decade ago, including this one:

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