13 Comment

• J February 15, 2019 at 10:23 am

  You think Turner at least called Mr. Clean to discuss the possibility of Houston as an alternative to New York?
• Toby February 15, 2019 at 11:09 am

  Atta boy Turner… Bread and Circuses
• joel February 15, 2019 at 11:52 am

  We’ve spent 15yrs trying to get an investor to do something worthwhile with the Astrodome with no takers.
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  Nobody will be building a real theme park close to Houston anytime soon.
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  We need a Legoland like ASAP for reals though!
• Ed February 15, 2019 at 12:42 pm

  Houston couldn’t land a Mr. Clean HQ even if it wanted to much less an Amazon HQ’s. Keep dreaming folks.
• Anonymous February 15, 2019 at 12:57 pm

  Since Amazon isn’t scrambling to find another location instead of NYC, it makes a lot of their HQ2 effort suspect. Did they ever really intend to do anything of the scale that they were claiming?

  In the olden days, companies like Shell moved their HQ’s to Houston with no special subsidies or tax breaks.
• HappyGoLucky February 15, 2019 at 1:09 pm

  Let Sylvester Turner pay for his & Travis Scott’s ” idea ” of a new Astroworld. They’re all for it- but on the taxpayers and private developers dime. Sylvester Turner can’t manage his way out of a wet paper beg,much less run a major city – Houston. Look @ all of the existing problems Mr. Incompetent CROOK has made 10 x’ s WORSE . HPD in dire need of 1000-1500 new police officers. Has tight wad City Council funded numerous additional police training classes ? HELL NO. And crime is increasing. Maybe if all of the City Council members & Bozo the Clown Turner were violent crime victims , the money would be “found”. Pot holes in the streets, decaying infrastructure , garbage pick up is a disaster, employees quitting ; the Mayor still resisting/f ighting (using what he calls scare public funds-except when it comes to his pet projects) paying firefighters equal pay for EQUALLY dangerous work. Giving his long time law partner Barry Barnes will get $6.7 MILLION for “legal work” connected to a post Hurricane Harvey housing project. So Harvey victims are still displaced / some will never go back to their residences.And the CROOKED /CORRUPT Sylvester Turner is helping his myriad supporters / cronies / business & law partners / associated attorneys / lawyers / and a good percentage , if not most, of the developers/architects / engineers /builders. All of whom have likely “donated” the maximum contributions to Sneaky /Slimy/Sleazy/ TwoFaced / LYING / Self Dealing Sylvester Turners re-election campaign. He and most of City Council( Ellen Cohen being one ) NEED to be gone. PERMANENTLY out of ANY government office: elected &/or appointed. We need new people who are NOT compromised and hypocrites. And who don’t truly us, the TAXPAYERS /VOTERS interests in mind. Let’s see if Allyn & Co. @ Swamplot posts this TRUTHFUL and true comment..
• C.L. February 15, 2019 at 1:18 pm

  @HappyGoLucky….. Tony Buzbee, is that you ?
• Spacing is Caring February 15, 2019 at 2:18 pm

  @HappyGoLucky
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  Feel free to hit that carriage return to put some spaces in that WALL of text. Paragraph breaks are your friend and cost nothing.
• Darby Mom February 15, 2019 at 2:57 pm

  Hey, Swamplot, did you get purchased by Fox News? LOL
• Old School February 15, 2019 at 3:41 pm

  I think we have our first Russia bot in the swamp.

  NYC was right to kick Amazon to the curb. Once upon a time, giant companies and their gazzilionaire owners would help build the cities around them by building libraries, parks, museums and schools. Carnegie built thousands of libraries and invested in schools and universities. Amazon wants billions in tax breaks for the privilege of trying to cram 25,000 workers into one of the most over priced real estate markets in the world with crumbling infrastructure and insufficient public transit. And what was Amazon going to give NYC? Libraries, parks, museums? Well, what has Amazon given Seattle? Not much at all. Amazon should not only have to pay its own way, but it should be giving back to the community way more than the crumbs it currently gives back to Seattle.
• Meatwad February 15, 2019 at 5:49 pm

  Old School, New York is a crumbling mess and one of the most heavily taxed areas in the country. Clearly something isn’t working. You’re spot on. Let the free market decide where Amazon puts its headquarters. After all, you’ll stop using them as soon as a cheaper guy moves into the game. Will you remember all that philanthropy then? And when did philanthropy become expected? What your talking about is pay to play. If you think tax incentives don’t pass the smell test try dealing with construction and union interests on your expected gifts. You’ll see corruption on a scale you could not have imagined.I think even if Amazon gave up every tax incentive, that’s the direction the pendulum will swing in New York. Its just easier to avoid the entire mess and expand/!upgrade current locations. Makes good financial and political sense. Sounds like Amazon is ok with that and the opposition is good with that. It’s a free market after all.
• TheNiche February 17, 2019 at 3:30 pm

  @ Old School: Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company, at which point he became the world’s richest man, and *then* retired and became a renowoned philanthropist. The tech sector also has had some high-profile instances of that happening. Bill Gates is a prime example. However, you shouldn’t expect a publicly-traded company to directly engage in philanthropy unless doing so is an element of tax strategy, promotion, or politicking. The people in charge of these companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to drive up the stock price. This puts money in the shareholders’ pockets, and shareholders — not the CEOs of companies — are the correct and ultimate arbiters of what is deserving of a charitable contribution.
• Angostura February 18, 2019 at 8:20 am

  Amazon apparently realized why it’s so difficult to do business in NYC. Once local “stakeholders” (unions, community organizations, local politicians) start to think that a business needs NY more than NY needs the business, they start looking to wet their beaks. Amazon did well to pull out before their sunk costs got too high.