The submission reads like a love letter to Amazon, even opening with an adaptation of Milton Glaser’s famous I Love NY slogan. | State of New York Top city official gave Amazon a role in public records release

In its effort to woo Amazon to New York, a top city official promised to alert the e-commerce giant to public records requests, in case the company wanted to try to obstruct those requests in court.

In the event a reporter — or anyone else — sought documents related to the city’s bid to house the company’s new headquarters, the official agreed to “give Amazon prior written notice sufficient to allow Amazon to seek a protective order or other remedy,” according to the non-disclosure agreement signed by Economic Development Corporation executive vice president James Katz.


The Commonwealth of Virginia, Amazon's other new home, offered the company a similar arrangement, promising a two-day warning on records requests.

While it’s commonplace for economic development authorities in New York to promise early notice of public records requests to businesses they deal with, it’s unusual for them to so explicitly state their reason for doing so.

“They don’t normally spell it out so the business can run to court,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “That’s not what they normally say.”

The EDC released the disclosure form Monday evening, following a public information request from POLITICO, along with its application to Amazon and other related documents.

The release comes in advance of a Wednesday City Council hearing on the controversial bid, where lawmakers are expected to grill EDC President James Patchett about the largest economic development deal of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure — one that puts him at odds with the liberal wing of the Democratic party that he purports to represent.

The normally adversarial administrations of de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo teamed up to submit an 81-page bid to host Amazon, in response to the company’s nationwide competition last year. All told, Amazon will get $3 billion in subsidies, most of them granted as-of-right.

The submission reads like a love letter to New York State, with officials boasting they are “rivaling Greece in Greek yogurt production” and de Blasio describing New York City as the place “where the future comes to rehearse, where the best come to get better.”

In addition to touting his own legacy projects, namely universal pre-kindergarten and expanded housing opportunities, the mayor also tried to lure Amazon with projects associated with his predecessor, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. De Blasio’s team referenced Hudson Yards, Cornell Tech and even the High Line, which the current mayor has made a point of avoiding, suggesting it is as an elitist venture.

The city and state also assured Amazon it could use eminent domain to acquire properties, as well as “override local zoning.” The company’s planned 4- to 8-million-square-foot headquarters, spanning several waterfront lots, will circumvent the typical and often lengthy city public land use process.

To a lesser extent, the submission also reads like a love letter to Amazon, even opening with an adaptation of Milton Glaser’s famous I Love NY slogan, with officials swapping out the heart for Amazon’s orange arrow.

The non-disclosure agreement meanwhile highlights, yet again, New York State’s notoriously weak public-information laws, a fact that an ongoing police corruption trial has also brought into stark relief.

Multiple emails between de Blasio and a now-disgraced de Blasio donor have surfaced in the ongoing corruption trial of former NYPD officer Jimmy Grant, even though City Hall declined to disclose those same emails in response to relevant POLITICO Freedom of Information Law requests.

A spokesman for Amazon said the agreement was standard and only protects confidential information the company may have shared with cities while it was selecting its final locations.