Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/12/2012 11:32:10 AM PDT

Special Section: San Bernardino

SAN BERNARDINO – The city’s bankruptcy filing hasn’t changed online giant Amazon’s plans to open a distribution center and bring 1,000 jobs to the city.

“What I can tell you is we’re excited to be bringing 1,000 jobs to the community, and we continue to be on track to open this fall,” said Kelly Cheeseman, a spokeswoman for Amazon.

And the company hasn’t made any request to share sales tax as a condition of coming, meaning that sales tax from all online orders processed through the San Bernardino distribution center – even if the buyer and seller are both from out of the area – should go to the city, said Jim Morris, who has taken the lead in negotiating the deal for the city.

“That would be our claim, that based on our location those revenues should go to the city,” said Morris, son and chief of staff to Mayor Pat Morris.

Since 2008, the city’s sales tax collections have dropped from $22.3 million to $19.03 million, part of an annual total revenue loss of $10 million to $16 million, according to a June 26 budget document.

The company’s opening should help reverse that slide, although officials from the city and Amazon declined to estimate how much money the company would earn.

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