We Owe It To The Memory Of Those Who Died

I received another great email from Dennis McKeon of WhereToTurn.org about the latest news regarding the memorial at Ground Zero. This was also printed on the Put It Above Ground web site as well.

Below is a quote from the Press Release from the WTC Memorial Foundation and is either from John Whitehead or Gretchen Dykstra. It is in response to the escalating costs of the current memorial plan.

“These issues need to be dealt with in a responsible way. This project is too important to undertake without clarity and confidence. We owe it to the memory of those who died to ensure that the Memorial and Museum can be constructed and properly funded.”
For the past four years we have been asking them to deal with this in a responsible way.

We asked them when they first made it known that the names of the victims would be placed three and a half stories underground.

We asked them to reconsider a memorial that was filled with safety and security issues.
We asked them when we saw that it would cost $300,000 for a heating system to assure the waterfalls would not freeze and that energy costs for heating and air conditioning would be about 1 million a year.

We were ignored by the LMDC, the WTC Foundation and unfortunately most of the press.
Below please find another quote. This one is from the Urban Development Corporation Act 174/68. The Act under which the LMDC and the WTC Foundation were formed. It pertains to any project and states:

“That adequate provision has been, or will be made for the payment of the cost of the acquisition, construction, maintenance and upkeep of such project”.

We now ask four years into this project how you could have authorized the start of construction last week when it was obvious to all here that you had neither the money or a plan to cover the cost of construction or maintenance of this project.

We owe it to the memory of those who died to have a safe and secure, respectful and dignified memorial at ground level where their families can visit at any time to pay their respects.
Something does not have to be expensive to be significant. The Viet Nam memorial only cost $8 million.

We hope you will listen now.

We lost nearly 3000 beautiful souls on the morning of September 11, 2001. We can't disrespect their memories by putting a memorial at the World Trade Center site that is either dangerous, or something we will end up regretting.

I pray it all ends up right in the end. But the fight goes on.