As the hype grows around the #AmazonHQ2 finalists announced last week, it’s worth perusing the proposals that didn’t make the cut to get a sense of what cities across America were offering.

Since launching our project to hunt down every proposal Amazon received for its second headquarters, we’ve found that a number of cities were more than happy to share what they’re offering to lure in the tech giant. A growing number, however, aren’t so keen and are keeping their bids hidden in a shroud of exemptions. Here’s a look at which cities rejected our request and why.

Towns across the nation aren’t just offering Amazon decades of property tax-free residency. Some also spent taxpayer dollars to put together the bids for Amazon’s second headquarters. Fresno, California spent $1,000 for the promotional video they had made. Camden County, New Jersey, authorized spending up to $40,000 on the bid’s design, renderings, videos and more from an architecture firm. On the other hand, many places spent nothing at all.

The tech-filled San Francisco Bay Area bidded on Amazon’s second headquarters, without giving much attention to how much that headquarters would gentrify some of the last remaining affordable spaces in the Bay.

Every year, literally hundreds of billions of tax dollars are spent on contracting agreements with private businesses. And all of them are subject - to some extent - to public records laws and inspections.