AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By Jimmy Vielkind 

Two thirds of New Yorkers view Amazon.com Inc.'s decision to scuttle a planned corporate headquarters in Queens as bad for the state, a poll released Monday showed.

The Siena College Research Institute last week surveyed 700 registered voters around the state and found 67% were unhappy with the tech company's Feb. 14 decision, compared with 21% who said it was good. The same poll found 61% supported the planned project in Long Island City.

Amazon had chosen Long Island City -- along with Northern Virginia -- after a yearlong competition in which more than 200 cities bid for the chance to host a second headquarters. Amazon promised to bring at least 25,000 jobs to New York in exchange for up to $3 billion of tax incentives.

The deal drew criticism from progressive groups concerned with the amount of incentives, local officials worried about impacts on the neighborhood, legislators who said they were cut out of the process and unions that attacked the company's position on labor issues. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio championed the project.

"The Amazon deal was seen as very contentious, however, there was strong support for it last month, before it got cancelled," Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said. "There is an overwhelming feeling that its cancellation was bad for the state. And there is strong support -- among all demographic groups -- for Amazon to reconsider and move forward. Clearly, jobs outweigh the cost of government incentives in the minds of most voters."

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he had reached out to Amazon officials to try to get them to reconsider. But the company hasn't indicated it will do so and a top aide to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said last week that there had been no communication in a week.

Amazon said its decision to walk away was prompted in part by the appointment of a leading project critic, Sen. Mike Gianaris, to a state board that held sway over the tentative deal. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in a Thursday radio interview said she had no regrets nominating Mr. Gianaris to the position, but urged Amazon to reconsider.

The poll, with a 4.2% margin of error, found mixed support for Mr. Cuomo's push to enact a system of congestion pricing that would impose a toll on vehicles as they enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. Support for the proposal, which would raise money for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was 43%-42%.

Legalizing marijuana for adults was supported by 53% of the voters surveyed, compared with 43% who oppose it, with a majority of Republicans saying they are opposed. Fifty-nine percent of voters surveyed said they support Mr. Cuomo's push to make permanent the state's 2% cap on property tax increases. Fifty-three percent of voters support eliminating monetary bail for people charged with misdemeanor or nonviolent felony offenses.

Write to Jimmy Vielkind at Jimmy.Vielkind@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 18, 2019 09:10 ET (13:10 GMT)

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