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This survey was designed to focus official attention on the corrupt process that gave us the current site plan and highlight the part that every public official plays in underwriting either the problem, by default, or the solution. It was faxed to every member of Congress and the 2008 Presidential candidates.
The questions are straightforward but we have not received a single response. Given the billions of taxpayer dollars involved and the deep emotional connection that most Americans have to the World Trade Center, we are disturbed by the lack of respect our officials have shown for this effort to raise awareness and get simple accountability.
If American citizens cannot ask direct questions and receive direct answers from their elected officials on such an important matter, what does that say about the health of our democracy?
Whether they think they owe it to us to go on the record or not, no public servant who has a say in this should feel qualified to decide such an enormously significant matter as the re-building of the World Trade Center if they haven’t bothered to look at these questions and answer them to their own satisfaction and subject to their own conscience.
1. Did you know that polls have shown that most Americans believe that the proper response to 9/11 would be to rebuild the Twin Towers?
2. Do you think the public has any stake in what is built at Ground Zero?
3. Do you think it would have been difficult to truly gauge the support for rebuilding, if those in charge had really wanted to know?
4. Did you know that when he was Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said that those who headed the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) had “violated their duty to the public” and called it “an Enron-style debacle?”
5. Did you know that the design competition was structured in such a way that replacing what was destroyed with a new and improved version of the Twin Towers was never an option?
6. Do you think most people realize that or would approve?
7. One of the LMDC’s key presumptions was that restoring the pre-WTC street grid is “an imperative?” Can you believe that most New Yorkers or most Americans would agree?
8. A recent comment on the TTA site asked what better way to say to the world that “we will not yield” than to rebuild the Twin Towers. Do you believe that what we build will send an important message?”
9. Are you satisfied with the degree of oversight and accountability for the billions of taxpayer dollars that were funneled through the LMDC?
10. If the General Services Administration’s promised move into the “Freedom Tower” is required for its feasibility, doesn’t this use of taxpayer funds deserve a public inquiry?
11. It is the position of the Twin Towers Alliance that it is not up to the public to have to justify why the Towers should be returned to their place in America’s skyline, but up to those who believe differently to justify the radical redesign. The World Trade Center and the Twin Towers were synonymous for decades in the opinion of the world. How then can it be said that we are rebuilding the World Trade Center? Can you put into one or two sentences a good reason why we are building something other than new Twin Towers?
Respondent:
Comments:
Thank you for the consideration of a reply. When you have written a “yes” or “no” beside the first eleven questions and added your name and comments, please fax this page to (646) 278-1097.
We can’t know for sure what the future holds for the World Trade Center or the United States, but, the more regard our public servants have for the good sense of the American people, the more likely we will be to successfully meet the challenges ahead.
