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Amazon’s exit could scare off tech companies from New York
NEW YORK — Amazon jilted New York City on Valentine’s Day, scrapping plans to build a massive headquarters campus in Queens amid fierce opposition from politicians angry about nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and the company’s anti-union stance.
With millions of jobs and a bustling economy, New York can withstand the blow, but experts say the decision by the e-commerce giant to walk away and take with it 25,000 promised jobs could scare off other companies considering moving to or expanding in the city, which wants to be seen as the Silicon Valley of the East Coast.
“One of the real risks here is the message we send to companies that want to come to New York and expand to New York,” said Julie Samuels, the executive director of industry group Tech: NYC. “We’re really playing with fire right now.”
In November, Amazon selected New York City and Crystal City, Virginia, as the winners of a secretive, yearlong process in which more than 230 North American cities bid to become the home of the Seattle-based company’s second headquarters.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded the city’s selection at the time as the biggest boon yet to its burgeoning tech economy and underscored that the deal would generate billions of dollars for improving transit, schools and housing.
Opposition came swiftly though, as details started to emerge.
Critics complained about public subsidies that were offered to Amazon and chafed at some of the conditions of the deal, such as the company’s demand for access to a helipad. Some pleaded for the deal to be renegotiated or scrapped altogether.
“We knew this was going south from the moment it was announced,” said Thomas Stringer, a site selection adviser for big companies. “If this was done right, all the elected officials would have been out there touting how great it was. When you didn’t see that happen, you knew something was wrong.”
Stringer, a managing director of the consulting firm BDO USA LLP, said city and state officials need to rethink the secrecy with which they approached the negotiations. Community leaders and potential critics were kept in the dark, only to be blindsided when details became public.
“It’s time to hit the reset button and say, ‘What did we do wrong?'” Stringer said. “This is fumbling at the 1-yard line.”
Amazon said in a statement Thursday that its commitment to New York City required “positive, collaborative relationships” with state and local officials and that a number of them had “made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward.”
Not that Amazon is blameless, experts say.
Joe Parilla, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said the company’s high-profile bidding process may have stoked the backlash. Companies usually search for new locations quietly, in part to avoid the kind of opposition Amazon received.
“They had this huge competition, and the media covered it really aggressively, and a bunch of cities responded,” Parilla said. “What did you expect? It gave the opposition a much bigger platform.”
Richard Florida, an urban studies professor and critic of Amazon’s initial search process, said the company should have expected to feel the heat when it selected New York, a city known for its
“At the end of the day, this is going to hurt Amazon,” said Florida, head of the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute. “This is going to embolden people who don’t like corporate welfare across the country.”
Other tech companies have been keeping New York City’s tech economy churning without making much of a fuss.
Google is spending $2.4 billion to build up its Manhattan campus. Cloud-computing company Salesforce has plastered its name on Verizon’s former headquarters in midtown, and music streaming service Spotify is gobbling up space at the World Trade Center complex.
Despite higher costs, New York City remains attractive to tech companies because of its vast, diverse talent pool, world-class educational and cultural institutions and access to other industries, such as Wall Street capital and Madison Avenue ad dollars.
No other metropolitan area in the U.S. has as many computer-related jobs as New York City, which has 225,600, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas each have a greater concentration of their workers in tech.
In the New York area, the average computer-related job pays roughly $104,000 a year, about $15,000 above the national average. Still, that’s about $20,000 less than in San Francisco.
Even after cancelling its headquarters project, Amazon still has 5,000 employees in New York City, not counting Whole Foods.
“New York has actually done a really great job of growing and supporting its tech ecosystem, and I’m confident that will continue,” Samuels said. “Today we took a step back, but I would not but the nail in the coffin of tech in New York City.”
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Follow Sisak at www.twitter.com/mikesisak and Boak at www.twitter.com/joshboak .
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Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Bernard Condon in New York and Chris Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.
Michael R. Sisak And Josh Boak, The Associated Press
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Border Patrol Agent Lashes Out At Biden-Harris Admin, Calling Job ‘Migrant Concierge Service’ Amid Border Crisis
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies.
A Border Patrol agent criticized the recent changes in his role under the Biden-Harris administration, condemning it as transforming into a “migrant concierge service,” according to The New York Post Friday.
Zachary Apotheker, who joined the force in 2020, voiced his frustration over the shift in his duties under the Biden administration from intercepting drug traffickers and apprehending illegal entrants to what he now sees as aiding migrant entry, in an interview with the NYP. Apotheker highlighted concerns about security and vetting under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that over 8 million migrants have crossed the southern border since January 2021, including members of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua.
“I don’t want to bring people into the country. That’s not what I signed up to do,” Apotheker told NYP. Apotheker’s distress is further compounded by over 1.7 million illegal migrants who have evaded capture since Jan. 2021, as he shared encounters with victims of migrant-committed crimes, naming individuals and emphasizing the personal toll on him.
Border Patrol agent sounds off on job under Harris-Biden administration: ‘Not what I signed up to do’ https://t.co/ELqWSRIKLu pic.twitter.com/HAKH2ZEuzT
— New York Post (@nypost) September 13, 2024
“I’m an apolitical person and I just want to do my job and protect this country,” the agent said, the NYP reported. “When I see people from another country coming here, getting resources beyond what the American citizen can get, that’s where I have to draw the line. And then they’re going out and committing crimes and we’re still not removing them and American citizens are being killed, women are being raped.”
Apotheker and multiple Border Patrol sources have raised concerns to the NYP about the inadequate documentation for unaccompanied migrant children under 14, including missing biometric data, complicating their safe relocation to families or sponsors in the U.S. He highlighted a backlog in the immigration system, noting that 291,000 migrant children have been released in the U.S. without court dates, with an additional 32,000 failing to appear for their scheduled hearings.
The border agent stated he is prepared to risk his career to bring attention to what he views as grave mismanagement and potential dangers posed by current border policies. “However bad you think it is now, it’s only going to be worse,” he warned.
The White House and Border Patrol did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Rumored deal with Bloc Quebec party could keep Trudeau Liberals in power, stave off election
From LifeSiteNews
“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country”
The possibility of an early Canadian election may not come to fruition after Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet hinted that an alliance between the separatist party and the Liberals under Justin Trudeau could become a reality.
Rumors began to swirl that a Bloc-Liberal deal could happen after Bloc House leader Alain Therrien said Sunday that the party’s “objectives remain the same, but the means to get there will be much easier.”
“We will negotiate and seek gains for Quebec … our balance of power has improved, that’s for sure,” he said, as reported by the Canadian Press.
Therrien made the comments in light of the possibility of a federal election taking place before fall 2025 after New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh pulled his official support for Trudeau’s Liberals last week.
Late last month, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre called on Singh to pull his support for Trudeau’s Liberals so that an election could be held.
Therrien also noted that the NDP pulling its support of the Trudeau Liberals has created a “window of opportunity” that his party may exploit. The Canadian Press reported that a person close to the Bloc party said directly that the NDP had in essence handed the party the balance of power.
As it stands now, the Bloc has 32 seats to the NDP’s 24, which is more than enough to prop up the Liberals, who have 154 seats.
As for Blanchet, he told the media on Monday that he was feeling “good” about his party’s newfound power. He then took a shot at Poilievre, saying he is more or less like Trudeau. “There are plenty of issues on which (Poilievre’s) in the same position as Justin Trudeau,” Blanchet said.
“Show us that you’re different, Justin Trudeau, apart from being against abortion, then we’ll see what you have to offer,” he said.
“If the Liberals don’t get into the frame of mind to let us make some very clear gains for Quebec, they’d better pump up the tires on their election truck right away.”
While most Conservative MPs are pro-life, Poilievre supports abortion and has a poor track record when it comes to life and family issues, with Campaign Life Coalition having given him a “red light” rating.
News of a possible Bloc-Liberal deal to keep Trudeau in power drew the immediate ire of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
“The federal government does not have a mandate to bargain with Quebec separatists at the expense of Alberta, the West and the rest of the country,” she wrote Monday on X. “If the Liberals go down this path, we need an election to be called immediately.”
On Tuesday, Blanchet responded to Smith’s comments to reporters by saying he found her remarks “funny,” adding that “Canadians are suddenly very interested in us.”
As for Trudeau, his woes continue to mount. LifeSiteNews recently reported how national elections campaign director for Canada’s federal Liberal Party announced he was stepping down because, according to sources close to the party, he does not think Trudeau can win a fourth consecutive election.
Recent polls show that the Conservatives under Poilievre would win a majority government in a landslide in an election held today. Singh’s NDP and Trudeau’s Liberals would lose a massive number of seats.
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