Pittsburgh school board member says someone forged his signature on Amazon HQ2 letter
Courier Newsroom
Pittsburgh Public Schools board member Kevin Carter at an October meeting. He claims his signature was forged on a district letter promising economic incentives to Amazon. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)
Pittsburgh Public Schools has hired an investigative firm to determine who signed school board member Kevin Carter’s name to a letter from the district that became part of the Pittsburgh region’s bid for the new Amazon headquarters.
District solicitor Ira Weiss said the investigative firm CSI, located in Monaca, will investigate Carter’s claim that his name was forged on an Oct. 11, 2017, letter from the district that declares support for providing tax increment financing [TIF] and other financial incentives to Amazon should the firm choose the Pittsburgh area for its new headquarters.The letter said the school district, as one of Pittsburgh’s three taxing bodies, was “fully committed to using our legislative and regulatory capacities to offset site-specific costs, support social initiatives that benefit our residents, Amazon and the broader region…”
Read the letter below.
On Nov. 12, Amazon announced it would be splitting the HQ2 site between New York and Arlington, Va. Two days later, local officials released the bid, including the school district letter, to the public.
That’s when Carter says he learned a signature of his name was included. He posted messages on Facebook and made a statement at Tuesday’s school board meeting insisting that he did not sign the letter and doesn’t agree with the contents. He also vowed to find out who signed his name and to possibly seek criminal charges against them.
“This is not OK. You don’t sign a public official’s name to a document,” Carter said in an interview with PublicSource.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-school-board-member-says-someone-forged-his-signature-on-amazon-hq2-letter/
