Watchdog group appeals Amazon ruling.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

A watchdog group is appealing a District Court's ruling that kept Minnesota's bid for a second Amazon headquarters secret. Public Record Media filed its appeal with the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Feb. 28.

At the same time, the group sent a letter to the governor and state attorney general asking them "to take all steps needed to achieve full disclosure of the state Amazon HQ2 bid."

"Because there's a new administration, they may have a different view of all of this," said Matt Ehling, PRM's founder and president. "And they may be open to some kind of settlement talks."

PRM sued the state's Department of Employment and Economic Development and Greater MSP last year, in an effort to disclose Minnesota's Amazon bid. Minnesota long ago lost out on the HQ2 project, which initially was awarded two East Coast cities. However, in the face of protests, Amazon pulled out of a proposed New York City location.

Minnesota's offer, compiled by Greater MSP based on data supplied by DEED and other sources, was never released. So Minnesota citizens can't be sure what kind of financial incentives, if any, were offered the retail giant to build here, PRM maintains.

Former Gov. Mark Dayton directed DEED to head up the administration's efforts to craft a bid. But the agency said in court last November that it was helpless to turn over the final bid because it does not have it. DEED was represented in court by Assistant Attorney General Christopher Kaisershot.

DEED insists the bid is solely possessed by Greater MSP, which has it stored in a private, password-protected electronic file-sharing system. Therefore, DEED asserted that it was not bound by the state's Government Data Practices Act to produce the bid. Meanwhile, Greater MSP refuses to turn it over, saying it doesn't want to be put at a competitive disadvantage.

Internal communications obtained by Public Record Media and made available to the court appear to show that DEED had electronic access to the digital bid materials, and possibly the full bid itself, at least at one time. But Kaisershot argued that the phrase "access to" is not found in the Data Practices Act, so it does not trigger mandatory release.

Originally, DEED alone was sued for violating data practice law. But it filed for dismissal, in part because PRM's claim lacked Greater MSP as a necessary party to the suit. PRM then added Greater MSP as a second respondent.

Greater MSP argued that it is not subject to the...