 |
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||
The following is the text of an email that was sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on 4/21/07. Copies were sent to the 7 – out of 31 – members of Congress representing the people of New York, who provide their constituents with direct addresses: Vito Fossella, Peter King, Michael McNulty, Gregory Meeks, Jose Serrano, James Walsh, and Anthony Wiener. The others force the public to use a web-based form – one more wall between us and them.
To: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
Subject: “The challenge today is to bring new, fresh thinking and fresh eyes onto all that we do.” Nancy Pelosi - May 2003
Dear Madam Speaker,
The remarks you made to students at Brandeis University in 2003 were a treasury of wisdom. Since it sounds as if you truly believed what you said, we were encouraged to invite you to visit The Twin Towers Alliance website to take your own challenge.
On President’s Day the Twin Towers Alliance sent a brief survey to every member of Congress. Eight weeks later, we have not received a single reply. We can’t say we were surprised, but we are still optimistic that there are politicians and policymakers, as well as journalists and business leaders, who’ve never looked at the issue the way it is presented on our site, and who would be willing to question their assumptions and search for answers before deciding what is best. That’s all we ask because we know where honest questions will lead.
There are heavily financed vested interests arrayed against such an inquiry, but the mere fact that the so-called Freedom Tower has no hope of viability unless the GSA underwrites it with government leases makes this very much a matter for Washington’s attention. It is time for a vigorous HUD inquiry into the way the rebuilding has been carried out before it is too late to correct the wrongheaded course.
The current plan for the World Trade Center is the result of an elaborate effort to give the appearance of consensus but which was, in the words of then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, an Enron-style debacle. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars enabled New York to recover. And that, coupled with our enormous emotional investment, makes the people of America the majority stakeholder in what gets built at Ground Zero.
But one would be hard-pressed to find even an honorable mention of the popular course, the People’s Choice, in the records of the official process or, sadly, in the media that we rely upon to be our watchdogs. It is alarming how this has been handled - without any true oversight or conscience. But it is not too late to get it right. Let’s have the public discussion that never took place and put an end to the scheming and deception.
The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 despised our democratic way of life and hoped to bring it down. And in the aftermath, our own officials and civic leaders have paid only lip service to the will of the people, while enabling the special interests who covet the site to pursue what is best for them. The mismanagement and dishonesty that have characterized the process since Day One are easily proved and we would welcome the opportunity to make the case before the American People.
The wording you chose as an email address is promising. We are attaching a link to an op-ed sent to us last year by a college student who submitted it to all the major papers and truly believed someone would publish it. He thinks that Rebuilding the Twin Towers Transcends Politics. We hope you will agree.
We look forward to learning that you discovered in our presentation that it is not too late to do the right thing.
Respectfully,
The Twin Towers Alliance
Because Five Years of the Wrong Plan for the Wrong Reasons is Long Enough!
