State Senator Michael Gianaris, a fierce critic of Amazon, won't be sitting on the obscure but periodically powerful New York State Public Authorities Control Board after all. The prospect of Gianaris's board membership, which could've given him a veto over the Amazon deal, helped spook the company into backing out of from becoming one of the city's major employers. Amazon supporter Governor Andrew Cuomo could have prevented Gianaris from taking the position but, somewhat inexplicably, never acted.

The Public Authorities Control Board assumed an outsized role in the Amazon drama because the deal included a $500 million grant to build the company's Long Island City campus. The board would have voted on that part of the $3 billion subsidy package.  

In a letter to Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who had nominated Gianaris to the board earlier this month, blamed the governor's "inaction" for her withdrawal of Gianaris's name.

"Through comments you have made to others in public meetings and interviews," she wrote, "it has become clear that you do not intend to confirm this appointment to the PACB...To ensure the Senate Majority is properly represented, I hereby formally recommend Senator Leroy Comrie as the Senate’s representative on the Public Authorities Control Board."

Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi's reaction? "Great, but it's a day late and $27 billion short." His implication was that the Amazon deal might've been saved had Stewart-Cousins not put Gianaris's name forward, or withdrawn it before the company bolted, taking with it a projected $27 billion in city and state tax revenues over 25 years. Azzopardi added that the governor would review Comrie's nomination. Comrie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While Cuomo never moved one way or the other on the Gianaris nomination, his budget director, Robert Mujica, said his boss would have eventually rejected it.

"Of course the Governor would never accept a Senate nomination of an opponent to the project and the Governor told that to Amazon directly," he wrote in an open letter slamming Democratic opposition to Amazon.