Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 16:14:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Epstein 
Subject: WTC Rebuilding #409:Memorial Can-Rattling,Tower Planning


Saturday's meeting of pro-rebuilders brought together some plans that
aren't ready to be announced yet.(I barely missed the train I intended
to get home on...we talked for several hours!)

However,there's always opportunity to be active and the need to
counteract plans against our interests.

Today (Monday) saw a memorialist rally at the site organized by the
takebackthememorial.org group...varied interests are represented,
some of which are on our side and others not.

(I note that they have one of those no-good-option-offered polls
on their site,asking whether decisions about the site should be
made by the memorial foundation,the development corporation,or
politicians,all of whom are intent on doing the wrong thing in
different ways!)

TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES has an article that I urge ALL to write in on:
it refers to the official memorial plan having trouble getting donations.
The foundation wants $500 million and aside from the $200 million the
development corporation gave them they've raised $102.3 million,none of
it recently,from people they've talked into donating.

Donating to pay for the building of what the development corporation
chose is of course a bad idea,and we should do what we can to discourage
donations and make publicly identified donors aware of the disappointment
their choice to donate has caused.(Don't send hate mail...just say you
wish that thing would not get built).

I note that Debra Burlingame of Take Back the Memorial,for all that she
wants details changed,supports donation to the project,but those of us
who want the site plan scrapped must robustly refuse.A major campaign to
get public donations will launch in about a month and needs to be
counteracted.

Right now...we need to respond to the Times article (that will be the
next email I send after this one).I note this quote:
	"But,officials argue,the public process is long over,
	and now is not the time to revisit design issues..."

On the contrary,the indefensible travesty of a public process must
be discarded as soon as possible,rather than leaving future generations
the responsibility of removing its wretched products to put something
fitting on the site!!

Again:
write to letters@nytimes.com
stay under 150 words
include your postal address and phone number (which they do not print).

Tell them that the reason people aren't donating is because the rigged
public process resulted in something people don't want,and there is no
excuse for going ahead with it!!

If you would donate or lend money for TOWERS to be the main part of
the site,by all means tell them that.

Anyone who wants to consult about writing an Op-Ed to submit to the Times
please write in (not that I think we have much chance of being accepted!).
I recently discovered an easy submission process by accident.

Alicia Colon of the New York Sun alerted me to a column she wrote,
non-subscribers of the nysun.com website can read it through
http://www.nysun.com/article/28113?access=502723
It's pro-Towers but more political than issue-oriented.
The Lucianne.com site briefly had a board for comments on this
but it has closed.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.