Activists and community members who opposed Amazon's plan to move into Queens rally in celebration... [+] of Amazon's decision to pull out of the deal, in the Long Island City neighborhood on February 14, 2019. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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All important discussions. But before practical considerations comes principles, which is where the country has foundered for decades. What do the local communities need and how will this support them. Or not. Are businesses there for people or, like a love child of the movies Rollerball and Network, do corporations come first with the populace a distant second meant to serve organizations and the people who run them?
The negotiations between corporate representatives and political power brokers were secret. No one beyond those parties were supposed to know anything. Even freedom of information act requests were to be treated as suspect and hostile. Virginia contractually agreed to give Amazon notice of any FOIA filings "to allow the
Company to seek a protective order or other appropriate remedy." Amazon doesn't want anyone looking into its business.
Without information, citizens cannot consider their own interests and must trust to the motivations and wisdom of elected officials. If the impacts and all the terms of the deal are never revealed, there is no way to know if people should vote the same representatives back into office or send them packing.
Talk to experts who study government subsidies to corporations and you find that they rarely pay off. New York has scaled back demands on companies when development deals failed to deliver. That is when someone is following up on whether the company meets its end of obligations, a move that frequently happens with little rigor and depends on the data that the companies in question deliver. Or consider the cases where municipalities and states forget additional strains on infrastructure that may require expensive upgrades.
Governments must remember that their primary responsibilities lie with the people of the community. Without that context, residents-particularly those without economic power-will always come in last.
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