Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Department of Justice Emails Description An account of the resource The Department of Justice received more than 11,000 e-mails in response to the agency's public solicitation for comments upon its plans to distribute the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 established by Congress to benefit the victims of September 11 and their families. These e-mails have been organized here by date. September 11 Email September 11 Email: Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. Wednesday, November 07, 2001 6:42 PM wtc area business I have just returned from my first trip to Washington DC. I went as a part of a group of approximately 50 people representing small business owners in Lower Manhattan. We broke into groups of 5-10 and spoke to various Congressman to put a face and if necessary introduce the reality of the disaster in relation to post 9/11 impact on small business. The impetus for this trip is that though much assistance has been trumpeted in the press for "WTC victims". None of the solutions offered addressed the need of small business. The terrorists chose the most concentrated business district in America. Garbage Cleanup the government is addressing. Human loss of life the government can do little for. The main challenge in post disaster assistance for this unprecedented attack is business. And the government has not met the challenge. Government categorizes small business as 500 employees or less. I call small business (and so categorize it in this writing) 25 employees or less. This category of small business is what makes up >75% of the entire US economy. This category is the backbone of the American dollar. This category was the invisible skeleton of the body called Lower Manhattan. A small business owner, (being told to those who are not one), wears many hats, does whatever is necessary to keep the operation rolling, is the equivalent of many corporate departments rolled into one person. Most small businesses have thin margins, and very tight cash flow. The drive and stamina of the business owner pushes, on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, to provide a living for the owner and the employees. But there is little room for mistake. There is no room for interruption in either customers or income. It is a deck of cards that requires constant attention. And it is these millions of fragile micro-organizations that keep the economy ecosystem humming. 15,000 of these business exist below 14th St. in Manhattan. 1100 of these businesses exist in the area immediately surrounding the WTC. 50 of them existed in the WTC. The WTC no longer exists. The area immediately surrounding the WTC is closed as a crime scene. Peripheral circles around the area have a fraction of foot traffic, tourism, and business that existed pre 9/11. Thousands of residents that inhabited the WTC area were homeless for weeks, and many are beginning to move out. Each of these three area circles represent a different level of disaster. All three contain victims of the events. To date, most of these victims, labeled small business owners, expected direct financial assistance in order to continue to survive and rebuild, but got none. There was a suicide attack. Many died. Now there are wounded soldiers lying injured. There are various levels of hurt. Some need immediate surgery, some immediate blood transfusion, some are dehydrated and need liquids, some bandages, etc. The commander, aware of the situation immediately dispatches a truck filled with medical supplies and personnel. It gets to the scene. The wounded soldiers, professionally trained in self-support, quietly and patiently await their turn for emergency treatment. And the driver, lieutenant and medic begin arguing how to administer what to who, when. Minutes go by. Soldiers begin dying. Some that were simply wounded begin getting infected. But the argument continues. The soldiers, who assumed they were getting immediate medical assistance begin moaning, griping. But the dispatched personnel demand patience that will allow judicious, responsible disbursement of supplies. And they continue to withhold the supplies. More soldiers die. Many are beginning to lose the necessary strength and hope to survive until they get the blood transfusion. Small Business owners, are by design a quiet independent, autonomous, self-healing non-group. A serious clump of them just got attacked by a suicide bomber. President Bush authorized $20,000,000,000 to assist in their area's recovery. And the governmental machine in Washington has not appropriated or disbursed one penny of that yet. They are arguing if, how, when, what and where. They are playing catch with a blood bag in front of a soldier who lies at their feet, bleeding to death. Does one, look down at a soldier bleeding profusely, and begin a scholarly debate whether it is a waste of effort and blood, because the guy might end up dying later? Does one hold meetings when in an emergency room faced with heavily wounded people? Doctors are trained and board certified for various levels of service. There is regular medical services, checkups, scheduled operations, and there is emergency treatment. When in a emergency room faced with many heavily wounded people one acts fast and professionally, making quick decisions, hoping and assuming that past training and experience will guide the process. Government officials are chosen for various levels of service. There is regular business. Regular Politics. And there is emergency situations. The government has, to date, failed to do their job in this emergency situation. Rather than to act as the experienced professional temporary healer with quick efficient decisions and assistance, it has provided noisy distraction, silence of action, confusion, and a horrific prevention and delay of assistance. Is this simply a portrayal that nothing can get done without a powerful lobby, even emergency assistance? Did we elect leaders incapable of acting in due proportion and diligence to that dealt? Are they really that short-sighted not to understand the unchecked impact that continues to ripple outward? Did 9/11 show that our leadership is as generally as weak and ineffective as it seemed on 9/11? I prefer to believe otherwise. I think Congressman and senators are experienced, intelligent professionals. They can focus, and act quickly. But they live in a cocoon called the Capitol. Well. NYC downtown small business calling the Capitol. Stop playing government, and do it for real. The Feds should set up a fully staffed, with a fully wired-to-government-computer system office IN downtown NY, exclusively setup to ensure that every small business that existed before 9/11 gets what it needs (pure, no-strings-attached grant money to start with) to stay in operation until this area gets refreshed. That location should be the mother lode that gets all pertinent info, eliminating filling out the same info repeatedly. Directing apropriate programs and solutions to and thru the many well-meaning and diverse assistance organizations. Compiling, directing, dispensing. Rapidly and efficiently. Disaster Emergency Relief. Not anything else. And do it today. Another soldier just died, and 3 more citizens ran away. Hello? Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-11-07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource dojW000208.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. email Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2001-11-07