[NYguy]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...out-amazon-hq2

Seattle City Council Members Visit New York to Warn About Amazon HQ2


By Krista Gmelich and Spencer Soper
January 7, 2019

Two politicians from Amazon.com Inc.’s hometown traveled across the country to New York to deliver a cautionary message about the company’s expansion in the city.

Members of the Seattle City Council, Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, are urging elected officials in New York to pass legislation now that will address potential housing and transportation issues that will inevitably follow in the wake of Amazon’s decision to build a major new campus in Queens. Both are speaking Monday at an event hosted by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has been backing efforts to organize workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island.

While Amazon could generate more than $27.5 billion in additional tax revenue for the city over 25 years, local politicians and community activists have already come out against the deal. Opponents fear the high salaries promised by Amazon and influx of as many as 40,000 employees eventually will push out residents in one of the city’s fastest growing neighborhoods, and lead to even more congestion in the already overburdened subway system.

To be sure, the visitors from Seattle represent a city of 725,000, a fraction of New York’s 8.6 million residents, with a much less diverse population and economy than New York, a city with the resources to deliver a budget of about $90 billion a year, dwarfing Seattle’s $6 billion.

New York’s City Council has few, if any, tools to block Amazon’s deal in Long Island City, although its lawyers may file a lawsuit challenging the deal, which could slow the project’s progress. A $505 million state grant that’s part of the Amazon subsidy package may require unanimous approval of the state’s five-member Public Authorities Control Board, which oversees capital spending.