On Monday, the Delaware Economic Development Authority’s Council on Development Finance plans to review a brief proposal for the Delaware Strategic Fund money that concerns Amazon’s application to build a 5½-story, 3.83 million-square-foot LogistiCenter on the 142-acre site of the former General Motors auto assembly plant on Boxwood Road west of Wilmington. The site plan is pictured above.
To facilitate construction, Amazon wants a $4.5 million state taxpayer grant, despite the fact that it made $1 billion a month in after tax profits last year, and despite that that Amazon’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is worth $132 billion, and despite the fact that Amazon had a third quarter revenue stream of $70 billion in 2019, and has actually paid zero in taxes in 2019.
To be clear, Amazon should get nothing from Delaware tax payers.
This is economic terrorism from Amazon, where they are holding a gun to the heads of our state officials and saying give us the money or else we will take our jobs elsewhere. These state officials should have the courage to say no to terrorism.
Please consider attending the public meeting on Monday at 9:00 am at the Buena Vista Conference Center at 661 South DuPont Highway in New Castle, to voice your opposition. Or you can use Delaware United’s Online Letter Writing tool provided by the Action Network! Please do one or the other or both! Thanks!
Co-signing this. Was reminded by FB folks that Wilmington has a perfectly good CDC report/plan to help reduce gun violence in the city. It isn’t implemented because the state won’t fund it. We’re looking at a million or so to fund it. It is genuinely remarkable to me that a state who thinks they need this half baked budget smoothing to ensure some fiscal responsibility does not mind throwing money at places like Amazon. They have all of the money in the world and why do they need any of mine? The one thing I could sign on to is a focused investment in the road infrastructure coming and going to this site. Traffic will be no joke around this and the roads should be ready for it and the traffic patterns should be adjusted so that the traffic avoids neighborhoods.
But there’s never been any trickle down from any of this stuff. Ask our underfunded schools. Ask our not funded CDC report. Ask our prison facilities that still underserve its prisoners. Ask folks looking for drug treatment. Sheesh. Throwing money at Amazon doesn’t get any of the things we need most done.
Thanks for repping this. I’ll be there. I hope to speak against this. I hope to stand in solidarity with some of you.
Once again Delaware taxpayers can bear witness to the ugliness and venality of the so called “Delaware Way.”
Amazon, the multi-billion dollar conglomerate owned by the one of the richest individuals on the planet, Jeff Bezos, is asking for $4.5 million in Delaware taxpayer money to “establish its operations in Wilmington.”
This is another “prime” example of wealthy corporations seeking corporate welfare from ordinary working families who struggle each day to afford basic essentials.
Throughout my entire tenure as an elected State Representative, I have dedicated myself to exposing these corporate extortion plots that are so readily supported and encouraged by the corporate special interests that continue to influence policies and policy makers in Delaware.
I will be attending the Delaware Economic Development Authority public hearing scheduled for this Monday, February 24, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. at the Buena Vista Conference Center, 661 South DuPont Highway in New Castle, to publicly register my objections to this request by Amazon.
I am imploring all of you taxpayers, citizens, and people who care about fairness to join me at this public meeting. You don’t have to testify but your presence alone will send the message that such requests are an affront to the taxpayers of Delaware and should be rejected.
Representative John Kowalko
Learn more about Amazon’s abusive corporate practices: https://johnkowalko.com/2020/02/amazon-corporate-extortion/
An interesting piece of this story is that Amazon went to NCCo and asked for money too. County Exec Meyer told them no. Told them he wanted them here, that they’d be a major asset that they’d find this a very low tax (in comparison to what is closeby), high skilled place to do business. He couldn’t afford to give away NCCo tax dollars its citizens and neighborhoods are clamoring for more investment.
According to Sarah Gamard on Twitter the grant to Amazon is approved.
https://www.wdel.com/news/delaware-to-give-amazon-m-for-distribution-center-in-newport/article_bbef7164-5722-11ea-964e-c31888643f0b.html
Sorry REV.
They’re your tax dollars as much as his, so sorry to you, too.
This give away is yet another example of benign liberal corruption endemic to Delaware. Cassandra has got this totally right.