They asked for more $$
While the names of Sept. 11 victims were being solemnly read aloud at Ground Zero on Friday, 9/11 Memorial officials were in Washington, DC, angling for cash from Congress.
The sparsely attended House hearing infuriated a group of 9/11 family members who say it was timed to gain “maximum sympathy” — and disrespected their lost loved ones.
“While families grieved at Ground Zero, they did a money grab in DC,” charged Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son Christian was killed on 9/11. “To our shock, we found out about it by accident.”
The hearing never paused during five moments of silence and bell tolls at Ground Zero — at 9:03 a.m., 9:37 a.m., 9:59 a.m., 10:03 a.m. and 10:28 a.m. — times corresponding to a hijacked plane crashing or the Twin Towers falling. One panel member noted that the Capitol had observed a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane struck the WTC.
Memorial officials and local pols were there to plead for $25 million a year.
Calling it a “blatant act of secrecy, manipulation and greed,” the 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims blasted two officials who testified at the 9 to 10:30 a.m. hearing.
Only four witnesses were invited to testify before the subcommittee on federal lands, which is considering the funding bill: two Congress members who support the bill, Jerrold Nadler (DNY) and Thomas MacArthur (RNJ); and two 9/11 Memorial board members, Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot on the plane that smashed into the Pentagon, and Robert Kasdin, a senior executive at Columbia University.
“It’s disgraceful that they did this [hearing] when they knew the families with dissenting voices are up here,” said retired FDNY Chief Jim Riches, whose firefighter son Jimmy died in the attacks. “This is all about them making money. They’ve turned it into a revenuegenerating tourist attraction.”
The families helped block a bill in 2012 to give the memorial $20 million a year in federal funding. The group has complained about the steep salaries of memorial officials, the $24 museum admission fee and the storage of unidentified victim remains in the museum basement. It does not object to federal funding for the memorial but wants the National Park Service to run it.
Burlingame called the timing of the hearing “very appropriate.”
“What greater honor can we give them [9/11 victims] than to ensure that their memory and their history endures long after those of us who lived through it are gone?” she said. “I don’t find that disrespectful at all.”
The money is also crucial for security, she said. “Everyone knows that ISIS is here . . . and terrorist groups are plotting attacks on American soil.”