12 MARCH 7, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Why Amazon must come back to Queens
Nearly a month aft er Amazon
conducted the most infamous
Valentine’s Day breakup in New
York City history — withdrawing its
plans for a Long Island City campus —
many in Queens have not lost hope that
the retail giant will somehow change
its mind again and come back.
A group of Queens business leaders
have signed onto an open letter
to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos urging
him to reconsider. Two petitions are
also being circulated to convince Amazon
offi cials to give Queens another
chance. Governor Andrew Cuomo
spoke to Bezos and high-ranking offi
cials with the company; one Long
Island City restaurateur even fl ew
out to Seattle to meet with Amazon
executives in a hoping-against-hope
eff ort to change their minds about our
beloved borough.
How successful will this eff ort be?
We can’t say for certain. The ball is
in Amazon’s court — and only in
Amazon’s court. It’s the world’s largest
company, worth trillions of dollars by
itself. It can come and go as it pleases,
though we hope they might realize
that more people want them here
EDITORIAL
The Long Island City skyline. Photo: Mark Hallum/RIDGEWOOD TIMES
than those who actively railed against
the plan.
We’ve said before in this space that
Long Island City is the ideal place for
Amazon. The opportunity to bring
25,000 high-paying tech jobs with
an anticipated $27 billion in generated
revenue over the next quartercentury
was something we’re going to
regret losing.
Lots of misinformation spread
throughout the community since
the deal was fi rst announced. There
was moaning and gnashing of teeth
over “corporate welfare” — $3 billion
in tax credits Amazon was to
receive for developing its campus.
The protesters said that such funding
could be better spent on housing
reform and improvements to
public transportation.
But what the protesters didn’t realize
was that $3 billion wasn’t set in
stone. It was contingent upon Amazon
coming to Queens, and meeting certain
criteria toward job and economic
development.
Did Amazon need the $3 billion to
develop it? Of course not. But the same
argument could be made for the many
other businesses that reap state and
city tax benefi ts to come to (or, in some
cases stay) in New York.
And the $3 billion in taxpayer dollars
to be spent on the Amazon plan
was going to come back to the taxpayers
nine-fold, as Cuomo repeatedly
stated, through tax revenue generated
by economic activity.
Instead, we got zilch. Zero. Nada.
Bupkis. We still wonder how anyone
can call this rather obvious
defeat a victory.
As for those who understand the importance
of the deal and are fi ghting
to somehow revive it, we salute them
for their work — and pray that their
persistence will prevail.
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ESTABLISHED 1908
Co-Publishers
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
Editor-in-Chief
ROBERT POZARYCKI
Classifi ed Manager
DEBORAH CUSICK
Assistant Classifi ed Manager
MARLENE RUIZ
Reporters
EMILY DAVENPORT
MARK HALLUM
CARLOTTA MOHAMED
BILL PARRY
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