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Peduto explains decision to keep Amazon bid under wraps

The bid is in, but Target 11 wanted to know what the city of Pittsburgh is still doing now to convince Amazon to move here.

Pittsburgh is one of dozens of cities trying to get Amazon's second headquarters.

We wanted to know more about the bid and what the city promised the Internet giant, but Mayor Bill Peduto says that information won't be made public at this time.

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It's been a month since the mayor and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald submitted the Amazon bid in the hopes of luring the company, along with 50,000 jobs. Peduto has refused to release many details, so Channel 11 — along with a number of media outlets — submitted Right to Know requests.

On Wednesday, Peduto said they were denied because negotiations involve private land, not public.

“We are working with private landholders,” he said. “Their negotiations, what they're willing, what they want, is private information – it's not public information – and that is why the Right to Know was denied.”

While a handful of the 238 municipalities that submitted bids have released detailed information — New Jersey, for instance, offered up to $7 billion — Peduto says the majority have not.

Those that have, he says, are proposing public land in their bids.

But the mayor says if Pittsburgh makes the short list, there will be plenty of transparency.

“Anything that would involve public money in the future or anything else would have to involve a public process, any tax incentives, any tax plans, would have to go through public process and legislative approval,” he said. “All of that is forthcoming.”

There was some talk in other cities that Amazon's shortlist would be out by Friday, but now it appears it won't be out until early next year.

 

Cox Media Group

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