A reader submitted the following letter and asked that it be published.
To my dear friends and family,
I’m contacting you regarding a situation I’m put into quite often, which is; traveling the NYS I-87. Every time I come to New York I pass the spot where a fatal accident had happened last week.
I’m sure you’ve heard about that accident, and you are aware of the terrible fact that that this could have been prevented. Due to inadequate cell phone coverage in the area, it was impossible for the victims to contact emergency services, and receive the lifesaving help they needed.
I don’t want to imagine the disastrous results that can chas v’shalom happen when we are stranded without any means of outside contact, I’m still too young to die and my children are even younger.
Therefore as a frequent traveler of the I-87 I beg you to help me and other travelers by joining in the mitzvah of Pikuah Nefash. The cell phone tower issue is going to be debated this week in the NYS Senate, with Governor Elliot Spitzer, and many other of our representatives.
Please write or contact those two upstanding government officials for their support in this matter: Senator Elizabeth Little and Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward. Mrs. Little and Ms. Sayward are from upstate New York, and have reacted with outrage to this story. They have started a massive campaign in Albany to build cell towers in the area immediately.
We need to show them our support and acknowledgment for taking care of this urgent matter. Let us all do our part in saving more Yiddish lives from such tzaros in the future.
I’m asking this from you as a personal favor. You can save a life! So please do it. Your support is needed.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Following are the contacts:
State Senator:
Mrs. Elizabeth Little
305 West Bay Plaza
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(518) 561-2430
E-mail form on website: http://www.senatorlittle.com/send_email.asp
Assemblywoman:
Mrs. Teresa R. Sayward
113th Assembly District
7559 Court St. Rm. 203
PO Box 217
Elizabethtown, NY 12932
518-873-3803
E-mail form on website: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=113&sh=con
Email: [email protected]
Governor:
Eliot Spitzer
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
518-474-8390
E-mail form on website: http://161.11.121.121/govemail
Senator Schumer’s Office
Phone: 212-486-4430
E-mail form on website: http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
Phone: (212) 688-6262
E-mail form on website: http://clinton.senate.gov/email_form.html
Email: [email protected]
Following are some of the most influential politicians who are part of the Jewish community.
Sheldon Silver;
Email: [email protected]
Dov Hikind;
Email: [email protected]
Mrs. Audrey Pheffer;
Email: [email protected]
Simcha Felder;
Email: mailto:[email protected]
You can copy paste the following letter below:
Subject: NEED MORE CELL TOWERS!!! Better Coverage on desolate areas
January 31, 2007
To whom it may concern:
We sincerely appreciate and support your efforts to mandate cellular towers & carriers to cover all of The State of New York’s highway infrastructures.
This is nothing short of a crisis!
Accidents do happen, unfortunately, but to die waiting for somebody to find you because there are no cellular carriers on any given highway thoroughfare is no accident. If this is not considered homicide through negligence, I don’t know what is!!!
Please do everything in your power to convince your comrades to rectify this matter immediately.
Sincerely,
NAME:
ADDRESS:
CITY, STATE. ZIP:
TEL.
EMAIL:
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7 Responses
To make it a little easier for those of you short on time.
Here are all the e-mail addresses listed above that you don’t have to go to their website for. Just cut and paste these into the to: field
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
This is very important. Please make sure to do this.
Change comrades to colleagues.
This is what I got back from Simcha Felder:
Dear Mr. *******:
Thank you for writing. The issue that you described is one that falls under NY State (not city) jurisdiction. However; we all must continue to speak out and do everything within our power to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again. Thank you again for caring.
Sincerely,
Simcha Felder
Council member-44th district
destro613: You should be truly ashamed of yourself. We are talking about Pikuach Nefesh over here and you’re worried about it possibly being undemocratic? What’s the matter with you? You say “I know every time in Monsey a cellular company wants to put up a tower all the idiots come out complaining about bogus radiation problems”. Who are you to say it’s bogus? I’ve heard from prominent Dr’s that there may indeed be a radiation problem for people living next to cell phone towers. That in no way detracts from the facts that in this situation, having cellhpone towers near a highway can save lives! Dear destro613, didn’t you read that this an unpopulated area which is practically deserted? PLEASE USE YOU SEICHAL. DON’T JUST SHOOT FROM THE HIP!!
By the way, radiation issues apply to people living in the immediate vicinity of a tower; a cell phone towers signal goes way beyond that. In other words, you can have towers in the unpopulated parts of a town and still have good coverage in the populated parts, due to the strength of the signal. The problem only begins when the cell phone companies want to place the towers in the heavily populated parts of an area.
As far as this being a democracy and not a dictatorship, wake up and get real. Hospitals, insurance companies, medical providers, phone companies, utility providers and many, many businesses must spend money and conform to regulations so that everyone should be provided for.
civics-101:
In a democracy – we the people have the right to be heard and to use our influence in the legislative and executive process.
sending letters (emails, FAX -whatever) is a good thing.
destro: the problem here was that the enviromental wackos stopped the cell carriers from installing towers, since it would “spoil” there beutiful view of the Adriondacks. They demanded that the carriers install smaller, and less powerful, towers which was unprofitable for the carriers.
THE OILAM IS LEARNING IN THE DAF YOMI THAT WE SHOULD REACT
TO TRAGEDIES BY FASTING AND DAVENING
MAYBE THEY DID NOT HAVE CELLULAR TOWERS AND ACCESSIBLE POLITICIANS LIKE TODAY
I AM NOT TRYING TO MAKE FUN WE SHOULD DO OUR UTMOST HISHDALUS
PLEASE LET’S NOT LOSE PROSPECTIVE