Katie DeSanto, the general manager of Phoenix Books, first heard of the plans through a customer: a proposal to build a 107,000-square-foot Amazon distribution facility in Essex, Vt.

Soon after, she posted on the company’s social media page where she raised concerns about the company’s business practices and their employees’ working conditions.

The post drew some attention, and since then, dozens of Vermont residents have decried Amazon’s plans for a proposed distribution facility in Vermont. On Thursday, more than two dozen people rallied against the proposal outside the Essex Town Hall — the first of what protesters say will be many.

The plant could be in Phoenix Books’ backyard — the locally-owned shop has locations in Essex and Burlington — but DeSanto said that isn’t her only concern.

“This isn’t only about its devaluing of books, although that’s where our obvious interest lies,” DeSanto wrote. “It’s also about the business practices. It’s about their human labor practices. It’s about not paying taxes.”

Amazon, the online retail behemoth, first submitted site plan applications to the town in March. Titled “Project Moose,” the proposal, if approved, would build a distribution facility on 22.94 acres of land in Essex’s Saxon Hill Industrial Park off of Thompson Drive, according to Essex Development Review Board documents.

The town’s Conservation and Trails Committee first heard the proposal, and the town’s Development Review Board reviewed it on March 20.

If approved, it would be the first Amazon facility in Vermont. Amazon has a growing presence in New England, with the company’s largest facility in the region opening in 2023 in Windsor, Conn.

Dozens of speakers spoke out against the project when the DRB first reviewed the proposal. The vast majority of speakers expressed concerns about what the facility would do to local traffic and the environment, and highlighted the company’s record of hazardous and low-paying working conditions.

Those protests have since continued, and on Thursday evening, DeSanto and more than two dozen other Vermont residents protested outside of Essex’s Town Hall to rally against Amazon’s proposed facility.

She and others at the rally said they were concerned the project would affect residents who live in the area, and would negatively affect small businesses in the state.

“We don’t need this,” DeSanto, an East Hardwick, Vt., resident, said in an interview Thursday. “We don’t need the supply chain infrastructure that they’re supposedly offering us.”

Protesters waved signs for oncoming traffic Thursday before attending the town’s Development Review board meeting Thursday night — even though Amazon’s proposal was not on the agenda.

“Do we really want this billionaire coming to Vermont?” Garry Schaedel, a Burlington resident, said Thursday. “I think it would be very negative for our state.”

Another resident, Dennis May of New Haven, Vt., called Amazon “a despicable company,” one that threatens the livelihood of small businesses throughout the state. “There’s so many things wrong with them. They’re anti-union, they’re anti-environment, they’re anti-democratic government. They kill small towns,” he said in an interview. “One of the reasons I love Vermont — New Haven, Middlebury, Bristol, Vergennes, — is that the small businesses there are thriving. That’s the last thing we need to do is to bring in a company that represents the opposite of that.”

“I am willing to do whatever I can to stop them from coming to Vermont,” he added.

Many protesters pointed to the company’s recent shuttering of seven sorting and shipping facilities in Quebec, affecting 1,700 full-time employees and 250 temporary workers, after employees at one of the facilities moved to unionize.

“If the Amazon distribution warehouse happens to unionize and get fair wages and get health care, will they close like they did in Quebec?” DeSanto said Thursday.

The company, Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly wrote in an email Friday, determined that “returning to a third-party delivery model” in Quebec would be cheaper for customers.

“This decision wasn’t made lightly, and we provided impacted employees a package that includes up to 14 weeks’ pay after facilities closed and transitional benefits, like job placement resources,” Kelly wrote.

Kelly also defended Amazon’s efforts to maintain a safe work environment. He said the company has reduced its “recordable incidents” by 31% since 2019, and its lost time incident rate — which he said accounts for the most serious injuries –- has dropped by 76.5%

“Our goal is to be the safest employer in our respective industries, and we’re working hard to achieve that,” he wrote.

The proposal is still being reviewed by town officials. Katherine Sonnick, the community development director for the town, said the Development Review Board will continue hearings on the proposal on May 1.