Cuomo still wooing Amazon behind scenes
Governor has had multiple talks with Bezos, other execs
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was staggered by Amazon’s decision to pull out of its plans to come to New York City, is working intensely behind the scenes to lure the company back, even connecting with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, to make a personal pitch.
The governor has had multiple phone conversations with Amazon executives, including Bezos, over the past two weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the efforts. In those calls, Cuomo said he would navigate the company through the byzantine
governmental process.
Cuomo did not offer a new location but rather guarantees of support for the project, one person said. Amazon executives gave no sense the company would reconsider.
The executives also learned of an open letter being arranged for publication in The New York Times on Friday, also urging Bezos, the company’s chief executive, to reverse course again and build the campus in Long Island City, Queens.
The letter was signed by more than 70 supportive unions, including the AFL-CIO, local businesses and business leaders, community groups, and elected officials including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, a top Democrat; Max Rose, a first-term Democrat from Staten Island; and Carolyn Maloney, whose district encompasses the Amazon site; and former Mayor David Dinkins.
The letter said that Cuomo “will take personal responsibility for the project’s state approval,” and
Mayor Bill de Blasio “will work together with the governor to manage the community development process.”
So far, the company has shown no sign of reconsidering its decision to abandon the deal, in which Amazon promised to create up to 40,000 jobs in Long Island City in exchange for a state grant of $500 million and state and city tax breaks that would have eventually totaled more than $2 billion.
“I’ve had many conversations
with Amazon. I hope that they reconsider,” Cuomo told reporters at an unrelated event Thursday on Long Island. “It would be helpful if the state Senate said that they would approve it; that would be helpful. But in the meantime I haven’t heard any changes.”
Andrea Stewart-cousins, Democratic majority leader of the state Senate, said in a statement that she had indicated her “willingness to work” with Amazon. “I have always
been clear that I support job creation and was disappointed with Amazon’s decision and hoped they would reconsider,” she said.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined comment.
The conversation between Cuomo and Bezos appeared to have been the first time the two had spoken at any point about Amazon’s plans for Queens or about the company’s decision in February to cancel the project amid noisy opposition.
Since the deal fell through, Cuomo has been arguing in public and in private that support for the project was and remains far more widespread than it may have seemed.
“I do believe Amazon should have stayed and fought the opposition,” said Cuomo in a radio interview Tuesday. “It was a vocal minority opposition. Seventy percent of the people support Amazon.”
Those familiar with the company’s thinking have insisted that the decision
to abandon the New York City plan had been based on a confluence of factors, including the loud opposition and the lack of any sign it would abate.
“We think we could have gotten New York done, but you have to say, ‘At what cost?’ ” Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s director of global economic development, said at an event in Virginia Thursday. “We made a prudent decision that gives us the opportunity to hyperfocus on D.C.”
The advertisement, an open letter to Bezos set to appear on a full page in Friday’s newspaper, is aimed at combating the notion that the opposition to Amazon was widespread.
“We know the public debate that followed the announcement of the Long Island City project was rough and not very welcoming,” reads the letter, paid for by the Partnership for New York City, a prominent business group. “But when we commit to a project as important as this, we figure out how to getitdoneinawaythat works for everyone.”