The future of an Amazon distribution facility in a New York town has become more uncertain after Orange County’s Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled in favor of the independent monitor who had vetoed the project’s tax breaks from the county’s Industrial Development Agency.

OCIDA had approved approximately $80 million in payment-in-lieu-of-taxes real property tax abatements over a 15-year period in October 2025 for the proposed 3.2 million-square-foot Scannell/Amazon warehouse on 81 acres in the town of Wawayanda.

The state-appointed monitor, Brian Sanvidge, of Anchin, which merged with Baker Tilly on July 1, vetoed the PILOT in November 2025, citing insufficient information.

In December, OCIDA asked New York Inspector General Lucy Lang to remove Sanvidge on the grounds of falling weeks outside the 72-hour review window. Upon not receiving the requested outcome, OCIDA sued Sanvidge, his firm Anchin and Lang for alleged unlawful behavior related to the veto.

The suit was dismissed in Goshen court by Judge Maria S. Vazquez-Doles, who wrote in a June 29 decision, “Contrary to the allegations in the Petition that the IDA addressed every issue raised in the Sanvidge Memorandum and that the toll of the 72-hour period ended upon the submission of the IDA’s Letter Response to Sanvidge on November 10, 2025, the IDA’s Letter Response, which is attached to the Petition, reveals that the IDA did not address all of Sanvidge’s requests for information and documents set forth in the Sanvidge Memorandum.”

A statement from the IDA expressed disappointment with the ruling. “The record clearly demonstrated that the State-appointed monitor attempted to exercise a veto of the Amazon project after the agreed upon timeframe had expired,” said the statement, “despite raising no objections or concerns throughout the months-long approval process. We believed those facts warranted a different outcome.”

The statement said the project represented a “monumental economic opportunity” and cited projections of around $70 million in new tax revenue and over 750 permanent jobs.

What information did the monitor request?

In order to assess the appropriate level of economic development assistance to Amazon and to ascertain whether Amazon even needed an incentives package, Sanvidge had requested details and notes on competing sites, sizes and their offers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

“That’s what I’ve been requesting since last fall,” Sanvidge said. “It’s not fair to the taxpayers of Orange County to be giving $111 million in incentives to Amazon without that information being presented to the public in full transparency. I mean, the idea that the executive director says he negotiated that $111 million package and doesn’t have any notes, he has no records or anything.”

Sanvidge alleged that OCIDA stopped paying him once he began his questioning of the Amazon project. He said the October-April bills were unpaid, but as of July 2, the IDA had made “substantial payments.”

New York State Senator James Skoufis celebrated the verdict on social media. He was accused by OCIDA in January of exerting “intense political pressure” to affect the veto.

The court filing alleged that Skoufis asserted that the financial incentives had violated OCIDA’s Uniform Tax Exemption Policy and warranted a veto due to failure to consider UTEP criteria, including quality and remuneration of potential jobs, onsite child care and the environmental effects of the project.

“The decision affirms what we already know: The monitor requested critical information from Amazon, they and the IDA refused to provide it,” a Facebook post by Skoufis read. “The IDA spent approximately $400,000 in public funds to bring this lawsuit – a complete waste of money that may as well have been lit on fire.”

Are there any remedies?

OCIDA has the option to provide the requested information about the Amazon project and reapply, according to Sanvidge, who was voted in May to serve another three-year term as the monitor.

“The IDA Board has not yet decided what we’ll do in response,” said Bill Fioravanti, the IDA’s CEO, regarding questions about reapplying or appealing the court’s decision.