Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ROCKVILLE – (WMAL) As the battle over Amazon’s coveted second headquarters heats up, some were left scratching their heads after Maryland Governor Larry Hogan touted Montgomery County as one of the competition’s finalists and then proceeded to criticize the county’s business climate.
At a breakfast in Rockville Thursday morning, Hogan responded to a question regarding how friendly the county is to businesses by saying county policies have hampered its efforts to attract businesses.
“Montgomery County—how do I say this gently—they’ve sometimes gone in another direction where they really are making it tough to do business,” Hogan told the National Association of Business Owners and Entrepreneurs breakfast, according to Bethesda Beat. “Montgomery County has to be careful because they’re competing against other counties and they are losing people to Howard County, Fairfax County because of some of the more anti-business rhetoric and legislation that they’ve passed.”
Hogan called November’s coming elections “good news” for the county.
One local councilmember was left dumbfounded over the governor’s comments.
“Wow. Well, what are we, in a debate about whether Montgomery County is a great place for Amazon to come?” asked Councilmember George Leventhal, also a candidate for County Executive. “I don’t understand what the Governor is trying to do here.”
Leventhal called the Governor’s comments “unhelpful,” saying everyone needs to pull together as “Team Maryland.”
“The jurisdictions that Amazon is looking at, many of them have high taxes because they have excellent public services and excellent schools,” Leventhal said.
Montgomery County is one of 20 finalists across the country for Amazon’s second headquarters, which the company says will create 50,000 jobs with an average salary of $100,000.
“We’re going to fight like heck to make sure we get it,” Hogan reportedly told the gathering.
Leventhal said the Governor’s comments were not helpful to that effort.
“If we are constantly whining about our business climate, that does not help our business climate,” he said.
Copyright 2018 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Gov. Larry Hogan/Facebook)
