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"If VEDP were to receive a reputation as an organization that does not protect such proprietary information, businesses that may have sought to do business in the commonwealth may choose to bypass the commonwealth and to do business with a more discreet state or country."
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Richmond dangled its most valuable property to lure Amazon’s second headquarters to the city limits. Chesterfield County offered to build a light rail line from the company’s potential campus to downtown. Henrico County was prepared to shell out for substantial road and utility improvements to score HQ2. These, and other details of the pitch the region submitted to the online retail giant last year, are contained in the official proposal the Virginia Economic Development Partnership provided to the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Redacted from the proposal are renderings from the future sites the region pitched. Those were the 68-acre city-owned North Boulevard site where The Diamond currently stands; a 160-acre site in Chesterfield wedged between Powhite Parkway, Chippenham Parkway and Jahnke Road at the county’s boundary with South Richmond that was formerly envisioned for a mall; and the 524-acre Tree Hill Farm site in eastern Henrico once planned as a major residential and commercial development. The state economic development wing also withheld or redacted financial incentives Virginia and the three localities offered Amazon to locate its second headquarters in the region, citing two discretionary exemptions in the state’s open-records law.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
They justified the redactions by citing exemptions in the state Freedom of Information Act that allow economic development agencies to withhold documents like marketing plans and proprietary information provided by private developers. “The potential integrated incentive plans represent information regarding marketing resources and activities that might reveal to our competitors the commonwealth’s strategies and plans for approaching large-scale economic development opportunities,” wrote VEDP General Counsel Sandra Jones McNinch. “If VEDP were to receive a reputation as an organization that does not protect such proprietary information, businesses that may have sought to do business in the commonwealth may choose to bypass the commonwealth and to do business with a more discreet state or country.”
Virginia Mercury
A top White House appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs sought to silence the agency's chief diversity officer, who — in the aftermath of last year's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville — pushed for a forceful condemnation that was at odds with President Donald Trump's response, newly disclosed emails show. The tense exchange between Georgia Coffey, a nationally recognized expert in workplace diversity and race relations, and John Ullyot, who remains VA's chief communications official, occurred during a low point in Trump's presidency: when he blamed "many sides" for the deadly clash in Charlottesville without singling out the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who rallied there. The emails were provided to The Washington Post by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight, which obtained them via the Freedom of Information Act. The correspondence sheds new light on the politically delicate decisions federal agencies faced as officials sought to balance the need to address employee concerns with a desire not to upset the White House.
The Washington Post
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