There’s a terrific new resource to facilitate investigative journalism and citizen activism on those 238 Amazon HQ2 project bids!
We encourage everyone interested to visit and utilize MuckRock’s website: https://www.muckrock.com/project/america-bids-on-amazon-175/
That page includes a list of more than 100 Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIAs) MuckRock has filed with local governments, seeking the documents and recording their responses. When a government has complied, it also links to a copy of the bid. (MuckRock is a non-profit that facilitates investigative cooperation.)
The page also enables users to add their own findings. MuckRock’s Adanya Lustig and Michael Morisy are coordinating this work, and are available at [email protected]
This additional MuckRock page suggests investigative angles: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/nov/09/seven-questions-amazon/ and that page includes a tipsheet from Good Jobs First and the Partnership for Working Families
See Partnership for Working Families’ (and more than 100 others’) open letter to Jeff Bezos: https://ourhq2wishlist.org/ and Good Jobs First’s Amazon resources page: https://goodjobsfirst.org/amazon-subsidies
Finally, we remind everyone: Although many governments are currently refusing to disclose their bids, sometimes invoking state laws that allow paperwork to be shielded when a deal is in progress, when Amazon makes its first cut, more than 200 of these bids will no longer be able to claim any such exemption and should then be disclosed. That could be true within weeks, perhaps even days .