How Amazon Went From Picking Queens For HQ2 To Pulling Out: A Timeline - Digg
Today, Amazon announced that it is abandoning its plan to open a campus in Queens, New York. Queens was one of two locations selected by the e-commerce behemoth for its "HQ2" after an extensive search in which cities around the country offered the corporation tax breaks and incentives. In a statement, Amazon blamed "local politicians" who "oppose our presence" for their decision to pull out of Queens.
After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.
[Amazon]
What happened? Amazon was apparently unprepared for popular opposition to a backroom deal that would have given the company almost $3 billion in incentives and tax breaks, and the prospect of a clash between New York governor Andrew Cuomo and a state board with the power to veto the plan proved too much for Amazon to handle. Here's what went down.
The deal was initially announced on November 13 — after more than a week of speculation and reporting — at a rare joint press conference between Governor Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Cuomo and de Blasio had secretly negotiated a deal to give Amazon about $1.5 billion in tax credits and construction grants from the state and about $1.3 billion in tax breaks from the city. The incentives amounted to about $48,000 for each of the 25,000 jobs that Amazon promised to create — significantly more than the $22,000 per job that Arlington, Virginia had negotiated with Amazon. Still, at the press conference officially announcing the deal, Cuomo said , "This is a big money-maker for us — costs us nothing, nada, niente. We make money doing this."
Other New Yorkers disagreed. The city council member representing the area where Amazon planned to build its campus, Jimmy Van Bramer, immediately opposed the deal. "To provide a billion dollars in taxpayer money at a time of scarce resources to one of the richest corporations in the world, that's run by literally the richest man in the world — it's obscene and it's wrong," he told the Guardian on the day the deal was announced.
In mid-December, the New York City Council — which did not have any standing to block the deal — held the first of two hearings in which council members grilled Amazon representatives about why they needed such enormous tax incentives:
"We have a crumbling subway system, record homelessness, public housing that is in crisis, overcrowded schools, sick people without health insurance and an escalating affordable crisis," said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, a Democrat. "Is anyone asking if we should be giving nearly $3 billion in public money to the world's richest company, valued at $1 trillion?"
Meanwhile, average New Yorkers, and Queens residents in particular, had begun organizing to oppose the plan. In December, Dave Colon reported the definitive story on the grassroots activists who were fighting the Amazon deal.
"No deals are enough if we don't have a place to live," Mauricio Piratova of Queens Neighborhoods United told an anti-Amazon community forum at Astoria's Redeemer Episcopal Church last Monday...
The meeting was a culmination of the first wave of activism that had gripped New York since the Amazon announcement was made, and was an opportunity for speakers to blast everything from Amazon's interest in working with ICE to its labor practices and the warping effect the company could have on Queens real estate. Displacement and gentrification have been at the forefront of concerns for organizers and activists throughout the campaign against Amazon, one that's taken the form of a series of rallies, street protests, community board appearances and door knocking campaigns around the borough.
[Splinter]
By early February, Democrats in the New York State Senate had found a path to blocking the Amazon deal by recommending Andrew Gianaris, the state senator who represents the district where the Amazon campus would be located, for an obscure state board with the power to veto the development plan.
The ability of a local legislator to block the deal to bring a major new Amazon campus to Long Island City was exactly what Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio had tried to avoid when they decided to use a state development process and to bypass more onerous city rules. Opposition, while vocal, seemed futile.
But now, with the insistence of Senate Democrats on appointing Mr. Gianaris to the little-known Public Authorities Control Board, those who want to stop Amazon from coming to Queens have gotten their most tangible boost yet. The board will have to decide on the development plan for Amazon, Mr. Cuomo has said, and could veto it.
On February 8, the Washington Post — which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — reported that Amazon executives were starting to talk about abandoning the plan to move to Queens:
No specific plans to abandon New York have been made. And it is possible that Amazon would try to use a threat to withdraw to put pressure on New York officials.
But company executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the company's perspective. The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, making it easy to abandon its commitment.
And today the company made it official, to the celebration of Gianaris, Van Bramer and other progressive politicians, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a district that neighbors the would-be campus:
So what happens next? New York can't literally spend the $3 billion in planned Amazon subsidies on other projects, since the $3 billion incentive was structured mostly as tax breaks (with the exception of $505 million in "capital grants"). But it stands to reason that if New York was willing to forego that tax revenue, it could find room in its budget for more popular and urgent public projects.
New York City doesn't have an employment problem, it has a housing affordability problem. Yet the original language of the Amazon deal used tax breaks that might have gone to infrastructure or low-income housing investment in the Long Island City region. While it's hard to draw a direct line between corporate handouts and foregone public spending, the fact that states and cities cannot run persistent deficits or print their own currency, like the federal government can, implies that tax dollars lavished on corporations limit the amount of money available to other public projects. Meanwhile, the New York City subway is a disaster, and tuition is rising at the City University of New York system.
In response to Amazon's announcement, de Blasio blamed Amazon for not being able to withstand community criticism.
Meanwhile, Cuomo — who once said that he would change his name to "Amazon Cuomo" if it convinced Amazon to move to New York — blamed "a small group [of] politicians" who "put their own narrow political interests above their community" and said that those politicians "should be held accountable for this lost economic opportunity."
L.V. Anderson is Digg's managing editor.
What is this?
Hey, we're Digg. We collect the best and most interesting stories and videos on the internet in one place.
Keep scrolling
The writer-actress behind the wild, disorienting comedy of "Fleabag" and "Killing Eve" is bringing her sneak-attack humor to New York.
I wrote this before my brain turned to mush from listening to (almost) only boy bands for a week.
Firefighter Alen Hertl thought this would be just another routine blindfolded space search exercise. Little did he know his girlfriend, Petra Mihelić, who's also a firefighter, had other plans in mind.
What's better than getting faster internet? Getting 100% fiber-optic gigabit internet with Fios that includes a three-year price guarantee and a year of Netflix, plus a three-year router rental.
Understanding the Black women who seized a common pantry item — and, with it, power.
Ah, yes, what every woman wants to feel on Valentine's Day: deflated and hoodwinked.
King Vader has built his brand on parodies like "Hood Naruto" — and a commitment to avoid beefing.
It's OK, Will. We forgive you. Really.
Scotty McKinney saw this machine headed northbound on Interstate 95 in Massachusetts, took some photos, and posted them to Facebook last week with a caption that read, in part: "I have questions."
Facebook security monitors users who have made aggressive comments, as well as former employees, through a "be on lookout" or "BOLO" list.
It's the quintessential love story of the modern primate couple.
Amazon was apparently unprepared for popular opposition to a backroom deal that would have given the company almost $3 billion in incentives and tax breaks.
Healthy relationships are all about communication. Read receipts can make that easier, or agonizingly complicated.