Courtesy: Robert Dickson
Content Correction: This article initially said the lawsuit was filed by Goldwater Institute. It has since been updated.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the City of Scottsdale did not violate state laws related to renting out city pools for youth swim competitions, but the City might have violated their own standards and policies.
In 2019, Neptune Swim Foundation (Swim Neptune) filed a lawsuit against Scottsdale following the City’s denial of Swim Neptune’s request for a contract to use city pools for age group meets. After denying Swim Neptune, a 2024 USAswimming Silver Medal Club, Scottsdale decided to enter into an agreement with Scottsdale Aquatic Club (SAC), a nonprofit and 2024 USAswimming Silver Medal Club that has held the contract for more than half a century.
The lawsuit, filed by Swim Neptune, alleges that Swim Neptune’s bid was three times more than SAC. At the appellate stage, Swim Neptune was associated with Goldwater Institute. Goldwater is a think-tank, whose website states that they “fight[s] in court to advance freedom and defend individual rights.”Goldwater alleged that SAC’s $3 hourly rate per lane is 70% less than what the pool charges other users and that the City is losing $284,000 annually under the agreement.
The Plaintiffs allege that by awarding the contract to SAC, the City violated a state law that prohibits governments from awarding low-bid contracts if the cost is not outweighed by the public benefits. By violating state law, Plaintiffs argue that SAC received unnecessary benefits. In 2020, the Superior Court ruled against Swim Neptune and held that just because the group “agreed to pay more does not mean that the City’s deal with Scottsdale Aquatic Club is so inequitable that it amounts to a subsidy.” The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the lower court’s judgment and held, “Neptune’s failed bid was not sufficient to prove that what the city gave… far exceeded what it received in return.”
But it was not all victories on Tuesday for the City of Scottsdale.
The second claim of the lawsuit alleged that the City violated its own standards in awarding the bid to SAC. The City has a process of scoring and ranking bidders on various criteria before making its final decision. In this instance, the City miscalculated when awarding a higher score to SAC over Swim Neptune.
Instead of recalculating, the City requested that both parties put on a presentation in order to win the bid. Swim Neptune refused the request and the City ended all bidding and extended their contract with SAC for another year.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling and held, “the city acted arbitrarily and abused its discretion by canceling the (bidding war) so it could favor (the Aquatic Club) by extending the 2016 license.”
The Supreme Court pointed out four issues that will now be argued when the case returns to the Maricopa County Superior Court:
- The City moved the goalpost when Neptune scored higher.
- The City treated the score with lesser importance when it favored Neptune.
- The City found flaws in contract guidelines only after Neptune scored higher.
- The City may have canceled the bid process too late.
The City will now have the burden of rebutting each of the Supreme Court’s issues with the bid process.
“The Supreme Court’s decision will help guard against abuse and favoritism in the public procurement process,” Goldwater Vice President for Litigation Jon Riches wrote in an email to The Republic following Tuesday’s decision. “It will also help ensure that taxpayers get a fair deal when cities allow private parties to use public property.”
Scottsdale Aquatic Club was the age group home for Canadian Olympian Taylor Ruck and Cal Bear All-American Ryan Hoffer.
Did any of you read the article? This is about the city of Scottsdale and their lack of following proper procedures to award time to utilize the pools. This is not about SAC and Neptune. Love how everyone wants to throw shade. For profit, non profit, none of that is has anything to do with this article.
Why would Neptune want a pool in Scottsdale anyways? From what I’ve heard they don’t have any swimmers from Scottsdale anymore. Neptune sunk that ship a few years ago. I really hope Neptune doesn’t win this fight. The word all around Arizona is Neptune’s culture is not great and even possibly detrimental to young swimmers. It doesn’t sound like Neptune is a very well run business either if they keep losing their pools. Wouldn’t the City of Scottsdale want to go with the tried and true Scottsdale Aquatic Club even if it’s for a slightly lower $ amount? In the long run, the City wins. Sounds like a no brainer.
Seems like this could be an issue at the LSC level, given the general chair of Arizona Swimming is the head coach of Swim Neptune. Anyone have any insight as to whether this should be deemed a conflict of interest?
These comments sound like a bunch of SAC and Neptune parents and/or swimmers pointing fingers at each other. And maybe a Gold Medal family or two just to dig in at both clubs. Fitting.
I would guess there are more former Neptune parents than anything else. I’ve spoken to enough to know that many are frustrated with their model. Whether they left to swim at SAC, Phoenix, Gold Medal they all regret not leaving sooner. A father once told me that they left when he realized that his kids were only seen as dollar signs to the club. Because that’s what this is all about anyways. Neptune doesn’t have this huge Scottsdale team that needs water- they want water to break into the Scottsdale “market”. And their strategy was to drive their biggest competition out of the city. By taking over the most central pool in Scottsdale, all those dollar signs… I mean children… Read more »
Neptune has been vying for this pool space for years and are becoming aggressive because they have not successfully acquired it. SAC has been paying its dues to the city for years and has given massive help to aquatics for the city. The team and coaches at SAC are quality hardworking people who don’t deserve to have this beautiful facility taken away. Neptune should be reported for all the things they have tried to bury and then we’ll see if the city will take their money.
What did they try to bury? What dues did SAC pay? Their coaches and swimmers are higher quality than Neptune by what measure?
If Neptune wins, this will be a huge tragedy for AZ swimming. Neptune shouldn’t be able to come in to every pool and drive out the non-profit clubs because they are for profit and therefore have more money. A huge portion of the elite AZ swimmers find value in the non-profit clubs, their culture, their coaches and their commitment to the community.
It shouldn’t matter what Neptune bids. SAC has been renting these pools out for decades, making the sport of swimming more accessible than any other club in Arizona. The damage to Arizona Swimming if Neptune were to win the contract would be devastating. SAC does more community outreach than Neptune by far, which is worth every penny the City might lose; Scottsdale Aquatic Club is essentially being paid to support the aquatic community of Scottsdale and perform outreach which has the appearance of being on behalf of the city. Not to mention that Neptune’s pockets are filled by pretentious parents who are willing to cover up Safe Sport violations and attack the victim in order to continue allowing their child… Read more »
I don’t know anything about the back-half of your comment. I do sort of agree with the front half, though, that if a club is a non-profit and using money for community outreach, etc., maybe they should get some extra points in the bidding, but also…I think that should be written into the laws and not just sort of made up on a case-by-case basis.
Or, even have it decided on a case-by-case basis, but then have that be the policy, that facility contracts are awarded based on a vote of the council, or whatever similar process you like.
I don’t know who you are but I’d like to buy you a beer
Awwww someone’s clearly all up in their feelings. Sounds like someone is being over dramatic. Maybe focus on the issue at hand instead of bringing up unfounded or undocumented allegations. Either way, sounds like SAC got a sweetheart deal for a long time and karma finally caught up to them. You might not agree with it but you’re really going to argue with the highest court in the state? Give me a break!
This boorish comment just shows how toxic AZ Swimming is. So many of these people shouldn’t be let around children. Who is the head of AZ Swimming anyway? Oh yeah, it’s the guy suing a team because he can’t manage keep his own water. How many pools has Neptune been kicked out of in the last decade? I’ll wait….
In what way does SAC make the sport of swimming more accessible than any other club in Arizona? How are you measuring the level of community outreach the SAC does relative to other clubs. Using pretentious parents from Neptune as a reason to keep there swimmers out of a pool is laughable, as though Scottsdale has none of those. Those poor impoverished SAC families lol
This happens all the time all over the country.
Good for Neptune pursuing this.
I don’t know, without all of the information available to us it seems like it’s hard to say. Maybe SAC was a lower rate, but a longer term contract which can be beneficial overall. Makes sense for people to stick with a group that has been with you long term. I also don’t know that I like the idea of teams getting into bidding wars for pool space, which seems like this may lead to.