After the deal fell through with Long Island City in Queens and Amazon, maybe Perth Amboy should contact them.

Why? Location, location, location! Perth Amboy is centrally located with Rtes. 1, 9, 35, 287, the Parkway and Turnpike right here, plus access to railroad and waterways. It’s ideal for a corporate headquarters for a company such as Amazon. What more can a company want? There are already Amazon warehouses near here such as in Avenel, Carteret and Edison.

Buckeye chose to come into Perth Amboy for its location. As did Target.  

Amazon would bring in 20,000+ jobs for all levels of education, which would help bolster Perth Amboy’s economy especially our small businesses. It would be a win-win for both Amazon and Perth Amboy.

The main sticking point in Perth Amboy especially are corporations coming in wanting PILOTS (Payment in Lieu of Taxes). You have to look at large corporations that came in without PILOTS and how effective they were (lowering taxes, supporting schools, and employment opportunities). 

I remember when Best Buy/Geek Squad and U.S. Food Services came in, I don’t know how many local people were employed. That should be at the top of the list.

I don’t know how many times I have stated, that in Perth Amboy one of the biggest businesses are staffing agencies. Often times, they need people to work 3 shifts. The people that are working those jobs are going to warehouses in other towns and they transport the workers at a cost.

With Amazon, I decided to check reviews through Glassdoor to see the pros and cons of what employees say about the company. It depends on the State that they are working in. A lot of the cons were about supervisors. Most of the pros were that their schedules were very flexible. The ones who were most pleased were people who can work 4 days on and 3 days off. This is extremely helpful when both parents worked and they had small children. The flexible schedules allowed one parent to work while the other stayed home. This saved money on childcare.

Another pro depending on where they were working was many of the benefits kicked in a short period of time.

I know two people who work at Amazon one of the Middlesex County locations and love it because of the flexible schedule, benefits, and overtime pay.

Everything is not one-size fits all. There are a lot of variables. You just have to decide if there are enough positive variables that outweigh the negative.

What New York should have done in Long Island City or any other town that Amazon considers is to have a series of meetings to hear the concerns and input of the residents and businesses.

Long Island City was not going to hand Amazon a check for $3 billion. During the duration of the contract, the City was supposed to get back $9 for every $1 invested. Sounds like a good return on the money to me.

Remember even if some of the employees would relocate to New York, they need someplace local to live and utilize local small businesses.

You have to look not only in the present, but the future as well. You don’t want to look 10 years down the road and see the same conditions that are present today in Long Island. You don’t want to say: could of; would of’; should of.

Modern technology has changed the way things work. The internet offers both opportunity and competition. As the internet keeps growing, more opportunities pop up. 

If Amazon ever offered to come to Perth Amboy, we should jump on it. Give Jeff our number. C.M. & K.M.