Bids submitted to Seattle-based Amazon.com to secure the company’s second North American headquarters should be made public by Enterprise Florida Inc., according the Florida Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam.
Putnam, a Bartow Republican and Enterprise Florida board member, made the comments in an interview Thursday.
“If you’re going to engender the trust of the taxpayers whose hard-earned dollars are making that possible, you’ve got to be pretty open about it,” Putnam said.
“We can’t play hide the ball.”
Putnam said he’s not opposed to Enterprise Florida using financial incentives to lure the online retailer, but only if the agency is transparent about it.
“That’s not to say that there aren’t opportunities from time to time for us to go compete to get a game changer,” said Putnam, who used The Walt Disney Co.’s Central Florida theme parks as an example of how a company can permanently alter the business landscape.
He said while other states and cities have done “some stupid stuff” to try to land Amazon’s new corporate home, Florida shouldn’t hesitate to “pull out all the stops in a very open, transparent and public way.”
Enterprise Florida’s board of directors and shareholders met Thursday at the Omni Jacksonville Hotel Downtown.
Officials with Enterprise Florida, the public-private partnership in charge of statewide business recruitment, coordinated the Amazon headquarters bids on behalf of several Florida cities, including Jacksonville.
The agency continues to decline to share details about the bids, citing an Oct. 17 letter it received from Amazon Vice President Braden Cox explaining that information concerning Amazon’s business plans, interests, or intention to evaluate or locate in Florida, as well as Amazon’s other trade secrets, were protected under Florida law.
In October, an Amazon spokesman clarified that while economic agencies and community officials are required to protect Amazon’s internal information through a nondisclosure agreement, they can share details regarding their own proposals, such as financial incentives and potential sites they included in the bids.
Enterprise Florida spokeswoman Megan Bailey said Thursday members of the board were not available for comment because of the meeting’s tight schedule.
Bailey directed Enterprise Florida CEO Pete Antonacci to not speak to a reporter after the meeting.
She said the agency had no further comment other than a previously released statement that refers to the Oct. 17 letter.
Gov. Rick Scott, who serves as board chair of Enterprise Florida, said in an interview after the meeting that he was not involved with the Amazon bids.
“You need to reach out to EFI,” he said, adding, “I think everybody ought to do business here.”
During his remarks to the board, Scott said he has “no interest in doing deals unless we get a good return on investment.”
In September, Amazon announced it was pursuing what it calls “HQ2.”
Over the span of about 10 years, the headquarters would create 50,000 jobs with average salaries of $100,000, a campus that could top 8 million square feet and a capital investment of $5 billion.
It listed local and state incentive programs as a significant factor in its selection process.
Amazon is expected to announce its selection in 2018.
Enterprise Florida no longer can offer financial incentives directly to corporations for expanding in the state.
That is because of sweeping changes made by lawmakers in the last legislative session aimed at curtailing what some call “corporate welfare.”
During the regular session, Scott asked legislators for $85 million so Enterprise Florida could expand economic incentives programs and re-establish the governor’s Quick Action Closing Fund.
Instead, a special legislative session to finalize the state’s $83.5 billion budget moved that money to a new Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, which is available to municipalities for infrastructure improvements or workforce training.
Lawmakers also agreed to slash Enterprise Florida’s budget from $23.5 million to $16 million, a cut the organization removed from its marketing budget, dropping it to $3 million.
“States like New York are spending $140 million a year on advertising,” said board member Eric Silagy during the meeting.
“We’re spending a couple million dollars and trying to reach the same global audience and trying to penetrate a lot of white noise out there,” said Silagy, the president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Co.
Silagy said the marketing team focused its resources on targeting specific leaders or businesses rather than creating broader content.
“We’re focusing on summits where these types of leaders come together because, frankly, we don’t have the budget to do a blanket sweep across some of these areas,” he said.
Scott’s proposed 2018-19 budget aims to restore the $7.5 million budget cut for Enterprise Florida.
“That would be the right thing to do,” he said. “We have to market our state and tell our story.”
Putnam, who attended the meeting but did not speak to the group Thursday, said in the interview that he’s a “big supporter of programs that help us grow and sustain jobs in our state.”
“You’re not just competing with the rest of Florida for jobs, you’re competing with your neighboring states,” he said.
The legislative session begins Jan. 9.
