Amazon HQ2 Bid

Ms. Lustig,

It has come to my attention that you submitted the below request to the Nicole Pollock, the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of the City of Providence.

As you may or may not know, the Access to Public Records Act (the "APRA") requires each public body to develop written procedures regarding access to public records. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-3(d). The City of Providence has published these procedures on its website: http://www.providenceri.gov/law-department/public-records-request/. The Attorney General for the City of Providence has opined that requests not made through the processes established by a public body do not constitute a request for public records under the APRA. See DeWolf v. Town of Coventry, 2017 WL 2342547 (R.I.A.G.).

As such, your request was not submitted pursuant to the APRA.

If you would like to submit a request under the APRA, please feel free to submit pursuant to our policies (provided above).

Despite the fact that you have not submitted an APRA request, I can advise you that the City possesses no responsive records to your request for:

1. A copy of the bid submitted in response to Amazon's request for proposals for the site of its second headquarters;

2. Contracts with third-party providers for services rendered regarding the Amazon HQ2 bid; and

3. Any marketing budgets regarding Amazon-related expenditures from September 1, 2017 to the present.

This is true because the City of Providence did not submit a bid as described above. Your inquiry might best be directed to the State of Rhode Island, which did submit a bid.

Although you have not submitted a formal request for records under the APRA, you may wish to appeal this response to the Chief Administrative Officer. In this instance, Nicole Pollock, Chief of Staff for the Mayor of the City of Providence, fulfills that role. You may also wish to file a complaint with the Department of the Attorney General or the Rhode Island Superior Court.

Regards,

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