Governor sees no second chance
State leader tells radio host loss of potential jobs makes him sick
New York’s opportunity to become the home of an Amazon headquarters has likely passed, according to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Following last week’s announcement by the tech giant that it was abandoning plans for a Queens location, the governor told WAMC News on Friday that it’s unlikely the state could convince the company to reverse its decision.
“I doubt it, because nothing has changed for them,” Cuomo said, without specifically addressing whether he had spoken with Amazon about reconsidering New York.
In unraveling the collapse of the deal that may have brought at least 25,000 jobs to New York, the governor cast blame on the state Senate’s Democrats.
He said the “total death knell for the project” came earlier this month when Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-cousins tapped Queens Sen. Mike Gianaris, a suddenly vocal critic of the deal, to be the Senate’s representative on a state panel — the Public Authorities Control Board — that would hold authority over the project.
“The state Senate made the misguided decision, in my opinion ... to treat Amazon as a local political issue,” Cuomo said.
Mike Murphy, a Senate Democratic spokesman, said that the governor could have rejected the appointment of Gianaris.
“As we told the governor numerous times, we would be happy to make a new recommendation if he rejected this one,” Murphy said.
Cuomo has repeatedly acknowledged his ability to reject the Senate’s recommendation, but never indicated publicly that he would block Gianaris, despite warning about the potential negative ramifications prior to Amazon abandoning the project.
The possibility that Cuomo might have prevented Gianaris from serving on the panel was previously discussed by Stewartcousins and an Amazon official, according to a source familiar with the conversation. If Cuomo had done that, the source said, Stewart-cousins indicated she may support the nomination of a senator less publicly opposed to the deal.
In Amazon’s announcement scrapping its plan to build a sprawling headquarters in Queens, the company blamed its decision on a “number of state and local politicians that made it clear that they oppose our presence.”
The controversy was rehashed later on Friday, when Cuomo’s budget director, Robert Mujica, released a lengthy open letter handing out blame for the incident.
In addition to repeating the governor’s complaint about Senate Democrats and local Queens politicians, he also pointed a finger at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, while accusing them of illegal activity in the process.
He outlined how the union funded protests to oppose the Amazon headquarters as part of a larger negotiation ploy to organize workers at Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon. “It backfired,” Mujica wrote.
“Ironically, much of the visible ‘local’ opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actuality organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not),” Mujica wrote.
The union issued a statement late Friday blasting the Cuomo administration.
“Mr. Mujica’s letter is deceitful and dishonest,” the union said. “He is trying to justify a failed process, which was shrouded in secrecy and was crafted without the input of the countless people who would be directly affected; instead the administration should have sought to ensure every worker was protected.”
▶ David.lombardo@timesunion. com 518-454-5427 @poozer87 ■ ■