What have we learned so far?

Edmonton’s freedom of information co-ordinators refused to release a copy of the Amazon bid.

But they did provide about 400 pages of heavily redacted emails sent between team members preparing the bid. Here’s what we learned.

Postmedia is appealing the decision.

FOCUSED ON SECRECY

The team was convinced secrecy was key.

“Keep this quiet within the teams,” wrote city branch manager Paul Ross in an email titled WinLab followup.

“Confirming that the (provincial) government ... will not pass information from one city to another as both shape their separate bids,” wrote a staff member in the mayor’s office.

EEDC vice-president Glen Vanstone said even the mayor didn’t get the bid, in an email sent one day before the deadline.

“So you are aware,” he wrote to a group of people whose names were all redacted, “yourselves are the only ones outside EEDC who have a copy of the Edmonton proposal.”

WORRIED ABOUT CALGARY

First the mayor’s staff reassured the team that Government of Alberta staff supporting the Edmonton effort would not share any details with Calgary.

Then Adam Sweet, chief of staff at EEDC, complained to the mayor’s communications manager that Premier Rachel Notley kept talking on Twitter about Calgary ’s bid instead of Edmonton’s.

He later thanked the city for taking action. Notley’s account retweeted one of EEDC’s tweets that day.

CONVINCED IT WAS A LONG SHOT

Email correspondence from early September suggests city officials weren’t sure if a bid was worth the effort to prepare given the tight competition.

“Are we even considering a bid?” wrote one junior staff member to the head of Edmonton’s regional economic development department, Gary Klassen.

“Looks like we would need the province at the table to really compete, but ...” Klassen wrote back.

“Yes, we are in tough but will give it a try,” wrote branch manager Paul Ross.