As the principal for CSL International, Mr. Rhoda had a considerable amount of input in the company’s evaluation of multiple cities, surrounding areas, and other evaluating organizations attempting to determine the feasibility of arenas in the Prescott and Prescott Valley areas, respectively. His methodology primarily consisted of benchmarking. In doing so he ascertained data about similar cities, areas, sporting events, and even other public assembly analysts such as Economic Research Associates (ERA) and International Coliseum Company (ICC) to influence his own findings. These would provide the framework to determine the viability of public assembly facilities in the two aforementioned areas.In some instances, Rhoda patently failed to test the accuracy of his method. In others, he was much more diligent in doing so. A good example of the former includes his propensity for misusing data from the ICC and the ERA. The latter researched the feasibility of such an assembly facility for Prescott Valley; ICC researched the feasibility of such an assembly for the city of Prescott. The ICC’s data was for a 20 mile radius around the city and did not pertain very much to Prescott Valley, which was analyzed with a 25 mile radius by ERA. Yet when researching...

One of the pivotal ways in which he was able to check the accuracy of his methodology was by comparing germane projections data provided by the ICC and ERA to data of actual facilities in operation at the time. The benchmarking showed that the estimates provided by the ICC and ERA were much higher than the actual data from these facilities that were operating, despite the fact these facilities had “superior market demographics (in terms of population, buying power and age) as compared to Prescott Valley” (CSL 7). This fact seems to support Rhoda’s findings that the estimates provided by ERA were too high.
Nevertheless, there remains some dubiousness about even this point of Rhoda. These other facilities are described as comparable, yet there is little information given to support this fact. One is in Texas and the other is in Colorado. Even more apocryphal is the fact that one of them—the…