Michael Gianaris turned his outrage into leverage when he was appointed to a state board – and soon after, the company called the project off
The man who stared down Amazon is state senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat who represents Long Island City, the Queens neighborhood where the company set its sights.
Gianaris came out in opposition to a deal that proposed $3bn in subsidies and tax breaks for the new campus, alongside a slew of other politicians. But his outrage turned into leverage when he was last week appointed to an obscure state board where he would be one of three people with veto power over the project. Days later, reports emerged that Amazon was rethinking its plans.
By Thursday, the company had called the project off.
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“New York is in a unique position to stand up and draw a line, because Amazon is not bigger than New York,” Gianaris told the Guardian. “We have the ability to set the tone for the nation.”
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It’s not unusual for big development projects to generate big opposition in New York. A few are killed, but more commonly local officials extract concessions from the developer.
For a company like Amazon, that may have meant giving up some of its subsidies or agreeing to remain neutral if employees attempted to unionize. But Amazon, which dangled its headquarters as a prize for cities to covet, proved unwilling to deal.
“Rather than engage with the community that would be most affected by their project, they instead decide to pack up and leave like a petulant child,” Gianaris said. “There’s no indication they took seriously the community’s concerns regarding this project.”
Most New Yorkers sided with Amazon, according to opinion polls. A statewide poll by Siena College this week found that 56% of voters support the proposal, even when told it includes $3bn in incentives. Still, the company chose not to dig in for a long fight against its political opponents.
Gianaris, meanwhile, isn’t about to start shopping at Amazon again.
“I was lamenting during the holidays that it was really hard to shop without using Amazon. That’s how pervasive it’s become,” he said. “They’re into everything, and that’s part of the danger of who they are and the kind of power they have.”
