Amazon Ditches Seattle As Business Tax Threats And Homeless Epidemic Reach Peak Liberal

Things continue to regress according to far left plans to destroy society in Seattle, as Amazon has announced they are transferring their headquarters from anti-business downtown Seattle to nearby Bellevue.

This comes on the heels of the groundbreaking Seattle Is Dying documentary and attempts by the city council to implement a corporate head tax, as well as the now-infamous AOC Amazon-To-New York covfefe. The head tax was so extreme that even labor unions came out against it, protesting self avowed socialist Seattle councilperson Kshama Sawant. Just last month Amazon pulled out of a multi million prospective lease agreement with a new building that is still under construction.

Geekwire reports:

Amazon plans to relocate its entire Seattle-based worldwide operations team to Bellevue, Wash., by 2023, adding thousands of employees to its new campus just across Lake Washington, according to an internal email obtained by GeekWire.

Moving a large and critical team away from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters is a significant relocation of employees on its own, but it’s also a weighty symbolic gesture — the clearest sign yet that the tech giant is cooling on its hometown while doubling down on a neighboring city.

Sources familiar with the plans said several thousand employees will be moving to Bellevue in the years ahead. Amazon confirmed the authenticity of the email obtained by GeekWire.

Worldwide operations is one of the most critical teams at Amazon, the arm responsible for getting packages to customers’ doors. It oversees more than 175 operating fulfillment centers around the world and the 250,000 employees who work there. The team also manages Amazon’s thousands of delivery truck trailers and its fleet of 40 airplanes. New logistics initiatives, like Amazon’s “Delivery Service Partners” program, also fall under the worldwide operations purview.

Amazon will start moving employees to Bellevue this month and will finish the migration by 2023. The company currently has 700 employees in Bellevue and more than 45,000 at its Seattle headquarters.

It would take some time for Amazon’s Bellevue team to grow to a size that rivals Seattle, but moving the worldwide operations team is a big step in that direction. The migration adds weight to the theory that Amazon is shifting its focus to Bellevue and other cities across the country amid ongoing tensions between the tech giant and its longtime hometown.

Why would Amazon move one of its most essential teams out of the company’s Seattle headquarters? Amazon hasn’t yet commented publicly, but there are a few possible reasons.

The move allows Amazon to continue tapping the Seattle region’s deep talent pool but lets the company escape some of the friction it is experiencing in its hometown.

Bellevue was Amazon’s original birthplace, but CEO Jeff Bezos moved the company’s headquarters to Seattle’s urban core early on. He said the goal was to provide the type of urban environment that young, dynamic tech workers thrive in. But fast-forward to 2019 and the tech industry’s rapid growth has fomented frustration among longtime Seattleites who have whiplash from how quickly the city is changing.

That animosity came to a head last year, when Seattle officials passed a tax on big businesses, like Amazon, to fund affordable housing, a pressing issue in the region. The business community balked at the tax, leading the city to repeal it less than a month later. The fight over the so-called “head tax” became emblematic of Amazon’s strained relationship with Seattle.

Despite being in a liberal area and voting for democrats in national elections, Bellevue has a pro-business Republican mayor, who is ecstatic to welcome the economic activity to his city of about 144,000. KOMO News adds:

In yet another sign that Amazon is cooling on its hometown of Seattle, the retail-entertainment-tech giant says it is planning to move its entire Seattle-based worldwide operations team to Bellevue over the next few years.

The relocation will spark a mass migration of thousands of employees from Seattle across Lake Washington to Bellevue by 2023.

“We’re very excited to have Amazon coming to Bellevue,” said John Chelminiak, Mayor of Bellevue. “It is a great company that was born in Bellevue, so we’re happy to have them back. This is also good news, I think for the region because the jobs stay here.”

Chelminiak projects 2,500 net jobs gained by 2023 through the move.

“We opened our first office building in Bellevue in 2017. It’s a city with great amenities, a high-quality of life for our employees, and fantastic talent – and it’s recognized for its business-friendly environment,” the spokesperson said. “We look forward to continue growing our presence in Bellevue and bring more jobs to the city.”

“If they weren’t annoyed deeply about something they wouldn’t be leaving, and I hope that Seattle pays attention,” said Kemper Freeman of Bellevue-based Kemper Development Company.

The company’s strained relations with Seattle became very public last year, when the City Council passed a head tax that would have cost Amazon and other large companies about $275 per employee, per year, for the next five years.

It doesn’t look like modern day liberals will stop until every business is chased away and every major city becomes a giant homeless camp rife with drugs and crime.

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