SEATTLE (AP) - Seattle city council members were shouted down at a town hall by angry constituents on both sides of their proposal to tax worker hours, as tensions boiled with tech giant Amazon.com’s opposition.
The community meeting Wednesday night came just hours after the city’s largest employer announced that it was halting construction planning on a new high-rise building near its headquarters in light of the proposed “head tax” for high-grossing businesses that would raise about $75 million a year for affordable housing and homelessness services.
Critics said it’s driving away Amazon and put the blame on the city for the festering homelessness crisis that is among the worst in the nation.
Supporters of the proposal said the tax would make Amazon pay its fair share of a burden it exacerbated.
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