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In The Public Interest Updated: 9/8/16 at 8:31 PM It was the founding mission of the Twin Towers Alliance to promote the will of the American people for the World Trade Center — one voice at a time. Of course there were plenty of interests competing over the future of Ground Zero, but none that could legitimately trump the popular will — at least not without a national debate. And yet, they did. Therefore, our mission expanded to uncovering what happened — who, what, when, where, and why. There were two overriding reasons why the “rebuilding” of the World Trade Center was distorted. The first: George Pataki, Michael Bloomberg, and their cronies in New York and Washington pulled off one of the most despicable con jobs of all time simply by repeating an outright lie. The rules promulgated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation governing what should have been the re-development of Lower Manhattan were published in April of 2002. At the top of a long list of “LMDC Principles for Action” was the pledge to “[m]ake decisions based on an inclusive and open public process.” But nowhere in the results of all our Freedom of Information requests did we find even a remote connection between the decisions that were made and the elaborately staged public process — which was, in fact, exclusive, closed, condescending, and corrupt. The second reason was that the press did not question the process. There certainly were journalists who tried, but the editorial commitment to protect the public interest no matter who might be offended went missing. We have yet to come across a single editorial asking officials how their decisions were “based on” public input and on what grounds anyone could claim that democracy was upheld, when the record shows that it was undermined over and over again. At the same time, media economics were changing and now discourage in-depth investigations or challenges to the status quo. Of course there are exceptions, but the relentless attention required to connect the often camouflaged dots takes a lot more time than most journalists can devote to the task. That’s where dedicated citizens can make a difference. Most of what we have been doing in recent years has not been posted on the TTA site. All of our energies have been spent on challenging the resistance of powerful, entrenched interests. Going forward, we plan to post more of what we are doing, because there is ongoing contempt for the public at the WTC that needs to be seen for what it is. TTA Article 78 Proceeding against the Port Authority in New York Supreme Court Promises To Keep Port Authority Reform Bill 10/19/16 Update: Waiting for the NJ Senate to decide next step. “Christie should do the right thing with Port Authority reform“ “Christie vetoes bills including Port Authority reforms” “REFORMING THE PORT AUTHORITY: THE ‘OTHER’ PROBLEM THAT WON’T GO AWAY The Disgraceful Durst Connection TTA Request to the Port Authority’s Office of Inspector General We believe that the questions raised in this request to the Inspector General and in the background links below are keys to understanding how today’s Port Authority operates. Current commissioners and the current executive director make a point of distancing themselves from bad decisions made by former boards and former directors. It is true that many of them are new since Toll-gate, Hub-gate, and Bridge-gate. But if there is anything improper in the situation we describe in this request, the public has a right to know. “Port Authority pays for old Condé Nast office to sit empty“ “Money for nothin’“ |
