{"id":10114,"date":"2018-04-16T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10114"},"modified":"2018-04-16T13:54:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:54:44","slug":"clash-on-the-issues-part-i-recruiting-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10114","title":{"rendered":"Clash on the Issues, Part I: Recruiting Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series about the issue positions of candidates in District 1 based on the debate hosted by Friends of White Flint<\/a>. Candidates clashed greatly on whether and how to pitch White Flint as Amazon\u2019s future location. While all touted Montgomery County\u2019s assets, there was enormous disagreement on providing tax incentives.<\/p>\n

Jim McGee argued against doing anything to recruit Amazon to Montgomery. He\u2019s outraged that Jeff Bezos makes \u201c$35 billion per year\u201d and opposes the siting of the equivalent of \u201ctwo Pentagons\u201d here. While correct that Bezos is wealthy, though missing that it\u2019s for creating a world-beating company, this analysis ignores both Amazon\u2019s duty to its shareholders or the reality of its economic power to command incentives. McGee admitted candidly that he was \u201cprobably not the right guy\u201d to make the pitch to Amazon.<\/p>\n

Bill Cook wants the jobs but is \u201cnot willing to prostrate\u201d before Amazon. He\u2019d tell Jeff Bezos that he doesn\u2019t need the money and you already have a mansion in Kalorama. Cook says he knows that Amazon is coming to Washington but won\u2019t be going to DC or Fairfax because \u201cthe schools suck<\/del>\u00a0are terrible.\u201d Neither true nor the way I\u2019d put it. The Washington area provides three excellent candidates but Cook\u2019s attitude would assure that Amazon doesn\u2019t come to Maryland.<\/p>\n

In contrast to these wildly unrealistic, populist views of the world, Reggie Oldak countered that it would be great if Amazon came, pointing out astutely that we are giving tax breaks, not subsidies, and that collecting 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Additionally, we\u2019d receive transit funding from the State. Indeed, the tax breaks are spaced over many decades based on Amazon spending many times more in salaries.<\/p>\n

Several candidates, such as Andrew Friedson, pointed out the attractiveness of our location near DC and three airports along with our transit system, educated workforce and excellent school system. Citing Montgomery as a diverse and welcoming community, Pete Fosselman argued emphatically that the tax breaks don\u2019t outweigh the \u201cphenomenal\u201d long-term benefits. Fosselman also pointed out the State\u2019s new funding for Metro along our planned BRT system as real positives in our recruitment pitch.<\/p>\n

Demonstrating her planning skills, Wellington also emphasized our great location and said agreed with Pete Fosselman\u2019s support for the Council\u2019s recent zoning changes shortening the comment period for the site, perceptively pointing out the most important discussions occur before the submission of the plan. She\u2019d work to make sure that Amazon\u2019s new building integrate well into the community.<\/p>\n

Ana Sol Guti\u00e9rrez said \u201cLet\u2019s make a deal. We can both win\u201d but did not outline the sort of deal she\u2019d expect or support. Guti\u00e9rrez said that the Governor is enticing Amazon with tax credits but wanted to know what we would gain from Amazon, saying that it\u2019s not about the jobs but the diversity. I suspect most would disagree with Guti\u00e9rrez and say that it is, in fact, about the jobs, pointing out that Amazon\u2019s arrival here would provide opportunities for our diverse workforce and assure that all people hired by Amazon, or the many businesses its arrival would spawn, would be covered by Montgomery\u2019s protections for employees.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Dalbin Osorio was ill and unable to attend the debate, which was too bad as he was a lively and interesting candidate at the first debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series about the issue positions of candidates in District 1 based on the debate hosted by Friends of White Flint. Candidates clashed greatly on whether and how to pitch White Flint as Amazon\u2019s future location. While all touted Montgomery County\u2019s assets, there was enormous disagreement on providing tax incentives. … Continue reading Clash on the Issues, Part I: Recruiting Amazon<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,15],"tags":[2115,2167,806,2166,2164,2168,2165,2001,1492,2023],"class_list":["post-10114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-district-1","category-montgomery-county-council","tag-amazon","tag-ana-sol-guttierez","tag-andrew-friedson","tag-bill-cook","tag-friends-of-white-flint","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-jim-mcgee","tag-meredith-wellington","tag-pete-fosselman","tag-reggie-oldak"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2D8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10114"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10129,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10114\/revisions\/10129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}