You may remember a recent post where I wrote that Doug Ducey, Republican candidate for treasurer, was delinquent with property tax payments on his home multiple times — he finally paid up just after he filed for office. Also, as CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, Ducey encouraged franchisers to invest in stores either in bad locations or too close to other franchise holders. Many of them lost their shirts. And that is Stone Cold.
It's beginning to look like, when it came to Cold Stone Creamery, Ducey was a Stone Cold bad businessman who made a lot of money for himself but didn't run a very tight ship.
From 2000 to 2005, Cold Stone was late filing its annual reports with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Once it was 8 months late.
Twice during Ducey's tenure, the Corporation Commission threatened to dissolve the ice-cream retailer for failing to file its reports on time. Companies that are dissolved lose their legal authority to do business in Arizona, said Rebecca Wilder, a spokeswoman for the Corporation Commission.
According to Ducey, even though he was CEO, it wasn't his fault. The same mistakes happened over and over, but Hey, someone else was responsible for little details like that.
Wait, there's more.
But the pattern of late filings extended to Cold Stone's other business entities.
Cold Stone Creamery Capital was dissolved by the Corporation Commission in 2006 after failing to file its annual report for more than two years. It had previously been threatened with dissolution in 2002 and 2003.
According to records, the Corporation Commission could not find a valid mailing address for the company
Melanie Hansen, who served as general counsel for Cold Stone from 2003 to 2007, said the company was allowed to lapse as part of a bid to reduce the number of business entities under the Cold Stone umbrella.
Another subsidiary, Cold Stone Creamery Leasing Company, filed its annual report late 10 times between 1995 and 2006, and in 2002 the Corporation Commission threatened it with losing its right to do business.
A third subsidiary, Cold Stone Creamery Real Estate LLC, is still listed in Ducey's name even though he left Cold Stone's parent company in 2007. The LLC is not listed on Ducey's financial disclosure with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office as required.
That's just the kind of guy I want handling Arizona's money, someone who allows all kinds of financial problems and mistakes to happen on his watch, again and again and again, but thinks it's not his fault. "Hey, that was somebody else's job, not mine."