Council Members, Kochs, and Socialists Unite Against Amazon
Petitions and protests urge cities to stop offering tax incentives to Amazon HQ2. But who’s listening?
As cities draft incentive packages to lure Amazon’s second headquarters (HQ2), a diverse patchwork of foes to the biddingprocess have emerged. Economists, city council members, socialists, and even the Koch brothers are rallying against state and city leaders who have offered large economic incentives to the corporate giant.
Three city council members from HQ2 finalist cities released a joint statement last month, urging all lawmakers to decline authorizing these subsidies: Jared Evans from Indianapolis, Brad Lander from New York, and Greg Casar from Austin. It’s a symbolic move, but it could be the only one with teeth if Amazon were to pick one of their cities: In some, including Austin, city council serves the ultimate vote in approving local tax deals. Publicly professing an intent to vote “no,” as Casar has done, might inspire other members to follow.
The city council members are reacting to the billion- and million-dollar packages Amazon has already elicited from the cities that havemade their bids public, with offers of everything from tax breaks to subsidized construction and training costs. But they are also reacting to the potentially vast pool of money that isn’t yet known. Only two sites have released unredacted versions of their proposals, and many others have obscured particulars. Not even the city council knows what’s in Austin’s bid, because while they do vote on it eventually, the Chamber of Commerce, not the city, does the actual bidding.
These lawmakers signed onto a pledge initiated by Richard Florida, co-founder of CityLab and Director of Cities at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, urging city leaders to refuse to offer Amazon any extra economic incentives. After the council members affirmed their support, councilman Philip Kingston from Dallas and Alderman Scott Waguespack from Chicago's 32nd Ward added their names to the petition. “[W]e call upon you to forge and sign a mutual non-aggression pact that rejects such egregious tax giveaways and direct monetary incentives for the Amazon headquarters,” it reads. If all cities agree not to offer incentives, the reasoning goes, then no city will lose a competitive advantage and they’ll compete against one another on the merits of their cities’ attributes. By March, more than 15,000 people had signed it, mostly academics, economists, and business leaders.
Other lawmakers who have not signed onto Florida’s letter have found other ways to speak out about the bidding process. Fellow Austin council member Leslie Pool publicly called out the Austin Chamber of Commerce for its lack of HQ2 transparency.
“I know nothing about the Amazon bid. It appears none of my colleagues do either,” Pool said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “I have been asking for some insight to what the proposal had, and I’ve been asking for six months. I find that extraordinary. It’s been mishandled by the Chamber. If they thought about it, they would have realized this would have been an issue for the whole town, and they should have talked to us about what they can negotiate.”
While Casar hopes the majority of Austin’s council, including Pool, will end up signing—and, later, voting—he says right now it’s more important to have broad representation across the 20 shortlist cities. The point of a non-aggression pact is that they mutually (and unanimously) disarm.
“Really, regardless of what’s in the Chamber of Commerce’s bid on behalf of the Austin area,” said Casar, “I believe that we would be better served if cities banded together and in unison decided to reject participating in what is a downward spiral at the expense of the public, for the private gain of Amazon.”
Comments
Post a Comment