Fulfilling an unofficial pledge to California officials, Amazon.com said Thursday it will open a warehouse in Stanislaus County.
Amazon's announcement comes nine months after the Internet giant settled a huge sales tax fight with the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown.
The company promised to bring 10,000 jobs to California over several years, and the warehouse in Patterson, about 17 miles from Modesto, represents a kind of down payment.
In announcing the warehouse, Amazon Vice President Dave Clark hailed "the support from Governor Brown and state and local officials.
"We look forward to creating hundreds of full-time jobs with benefits in Patterson when the facility begins shipping to customers in 2013," Clark said in a press release.
Amazon didn't specify how many workers it would hire. Rod Butler, Patterson's city manager, said in an email that "we are expecting at least 1,000 full-time regular jobs, with several hundred more seasonal jobs during the holiday season."
Amazon has worked for years to avoid sales tax collection wherever possible.
Last summer, following months of lobbying by brick-and-mortar retailers, Brown signed a law requiring Amazon and other e-commerce companies to collect sales tax from California customers.
Amazon responded by essentially declaring war. It began gathering signatures for a referendum campaign aimed at overturning the new law.
The referendum was shaping up as an epic battle. But on the last night of the legislative session in September, a compromise was struck. Brown signed a new law suspending the sales tax collection until September 2012.
Amazon halted its referendum effort and pledged to lobby Congress for a national e-commerce sales tax law. The company believes a national tax is preferable to a state-by-state approach, which it says is a logistical nightmare.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by Dale Kasler
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.