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Cities' Offers For Amazon Base Are Secrets Even To Many City Leaders (nytimes.com)
The location for Amazon's second headquarters is shrouded in secrecy, so much so that many city leaders are unaware of the financial incentives their cities used to entice Amazon (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The New York Times reports: Across the country, the search for HQ2, as the project has been nicknamed, is shrouded in secrecy. Even civic leaders can't find out what sort of tax credits and other inducements have been promised to Amazon. And there is a growing legal push to find out, because taxpayers could get saddled with a huge bill and have little chance to stop it. A primary reason for the information blackout is that, in many cases, the bids were handled by local private Chamber of Commerce affiliates or economic development groups that aren't required to make their negotiations public. Many of the groups are also not covered by Freedom of Information Act or state open-records requests.
But another reason is gamesmanship. Some cities say they want their Amazon proposals to remain confidential to avoid showing their hand to rivals. And Amazon required the finalists to sign nondisclosure agreements that forbid the local groups to release proprietary information about the company. With so much secrecy -- and bids like Austin's that involve unelected officials making promises -- there is the risk that taxpayers and their civic leaders will be forced to accept the proposed terms or live with turning down an enormously lucrative opportunity. Amazon, which is expected to make $235 billion in revenue this year, promises to bring the winning location up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and a $5 billion investment in construction.
But another reason is gamesmanship. Some cities say they want their Amazon proposals to remain confidential to avoid showing their hand to rivals. And Amazon required the finalists to sign nondisclosure agreements that forbid the local groups to release proprietary information about the company. With so much secrecy -- and bids like Austin's that involve unelected officials making promises -- there is the risk that taxpayers and their civic leaders will be forced to accept the proposed terms or live with turning down an enormously lucrative opportunity. Amazon, which is expected to make $235 billion in revenue this year, promises to bring the winning location up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and a $5 billion investment in construction.
Right. If anything of substance happens and I can't get the records then a call is going in to the AG to enforce the FOIA. Everything the government does that produces records is due to me on request.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
That's exactly Hollywood's business model. They've been screwing California out of taxes for generations.
They have also bilked my country out of something like $375 million (local dollars) over the last 15 years or so, even though nobody can actually determine that we get any sort of return on that "investment".
The last time Warner Bros. threatened to take a movie away from us, our government gave them $50 million extra and altered the employment laws to prevent local workers from taking industrial action if they didn't like the work conditions.
Apparently there are "jobs" involved.
The relevant line from Citizen's United is: “independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption.” By this, the court was indicating that quid pro quo corruption was the only kind of corruption which qualified as corruption. The fact that the decision was not really about this, but was rather about yadda yadda doesn't matter. This sets the standard for what corrupt acts are prosecutable in court within the United States.