Amazon AWS: King George County vote to reconsider Amazon deal

In a recent development, Virginia's King George County Board of Supervisors voted to renegotiate the performance agreement with Amazon. This agreement is for the facility's first phase at the old Birchwood power plant on State Route 3 near Sealston. 

Following the existing agreement, Amazon would get rebates paid back to them for infrastructure and equipment investment out of the taxes paid to the county. The cloud giant planned to invest $6bn in capital investments in the county to develop the campus and $336 million on infrastructure. After the payment of taxes, the county would then give Amazon a 10% rebate of their costs which is about $36 million.

The agreement was made on December 19 before a board shuffle, which led to Supervisor T.C. Collins's appointment as the new chairman and three new board members. Collins had initially voted against the performance agreement which made him ineligible to raise a motion for renegotiation according to county rules. However, Supervisor Cathy Binder, who voted aye, said she only did so with the intention of bringing it back into negotiation once the board had been reshuffled.