So, too, did Corey Johnson, the speaker of the City Council; Mr. Johnson held hearings instead of the private meetings Amazon requested. Amazon met with 35 of the 51 council members, and more had been scheduled for this week. A spokeswoman for Amazon declined to comment for this article. But two people involved in internal discussions at Amazon said the company’s concerns were not primarily that the deal would fail to receive government approval. “What we were hearing from people — small business owners, educators, community leaders — was completely different than what we were getting from the local elected officials,” said one of the people involved with the Amazon side.

Source: New York Times February 15, 2019 19:39 UTC