Amazon and Our Community's Ability to Respond to a Crisis
Do businesses like Amazon that short-change our community affect our ability to respond to a crisis?
In this pandemic, Bridge thanks first responders and the many people that help our communities work together. When I think of communities during Covid-19, Amazon comes to mind. I do think there is value in looking back at the last 24 months leading up to today and asking: did Amazon slow down our community's ability to respond?
Amazon historically pays less in corporate taxes than other local businesses, and its third-party sellers (which make up 60+% of its retail sales) often pay less in taxes to their respective states. These lower taxes result in less tax money being delivered to our first responders today.
We can also go back to 2018 to identify another Amazon issue: why did 200 municipal leaders offer the world’s most valuable company a handout to locate a new headquarters in their city? The 200 cities spent millions of dollars and millions of hours on proposals that Amazon knew would mean: nothing. Amazon wasn’t moving to Rochester (where I was born) or Winnipeg, but leaders there spent their time on that proposal vs preparing their cities for health emergencies. For example, what if the cities had spent that time instead on the best ways to prepare their hospitals for an emergency? Isn’t that what cities are supposed to be doing?
Today, New York State is under lock down. We’ve discovered our hospitals don’t have enough masks, ventilators, PPE, and other materials—and this include Rochester’s largest employer: the University of Rochester, which owns Strong Memorial Hospital. I believe one of the worst uses of Rochester’s time 24 months ago was spending time to ‘snag’ Amazon while its pantry of emergency supplies ran low. Amazon wasted Rochester’s time and Rochester wasted Rochester’s time.
Parkleigh, a gift shop in Rochester and Bridge member, has been a part of the community for decades. I remember going to the shop in middle school. Parkleigh, like most local businesses, is incorporated in New York State and pays its share of taxes—while Amazon has a series of shell companies to avoid taxes at all levels and pays almost no corporate taxes. Two years ago, Rochester’s leaders didn’t work to help Parkleigh and local tax-paying business get ahead—they offered massive tax breaks to Amazon to locate in Rochester. Summary: Rochester, a city that was already short of tax money, was going to embolden a tax cheat. That’s like Churchill sending tanks TO Germany. Today, Parkleigh has been closed for the last five weeks and its business has suffered significantly. Due to Covid, many small businesses across New York and America will close permanently. Yet, Amazon recently hired another 100k workers. Why 24 months ago did local ‘leaders’ work so hard to help the rule bender Amazon? Why did they take their eyes off their local businesses and health care needs?
I believe that Amazon conducted the HQ competition in bad faith as it had little intention of picking a city outside of the top 20 cities in America. Amazon should reimburse cities for the time and money they spent on the proposals, or offer to donate these funds to the city’s local hospital. I don’t know that Rochester’s civic leaders deserve these funds, but the Covid patients do.