I have become increasingly concerned by Mayor Mike "Whiner" Bloomberg's
fervent pushing for "Congestion Pricing" during peak hours in New York City.

The deadline for the NYS Legislature to approve of the measure is supposedly
July 16th, even though the Federal Government will not officially announce
which cities will be awarded money (much of which favors tolling) until
August. (See a report from a local paper in the New York suburbs, Newsday:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscong0711,0,7221890.story
?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines )

Although it seems like there is some sanity outside of Manhattan and strong
opposition to what effectively amounts to a transparent attempt to toll the
currently "free" bridges by calling it "congestion pricing", the more
elected officials hear from their constituents and concerned motorists the
less likely they will take action on the measure.

I have asked my employer if I can use a development server here at Interpage
which we use for general, pro-bono lobby/activist alerts (like rebuilding
the Twin Towers, more money for Amtrak, and so forth) as well as some
testing, if it would be OK to put up a couple of alerts against congestion
pricing, and they agreed.

I have thus put up two "alerts" which will fax a pre-written letter against
congestion pricing.

The first alert, http://www.lobbybyfax.com/lobby/selectstate.asp?alertid=3 ,
will send a fax to elected officials in New York State, including the Mayor
of the City of New York, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Governor
Elliot Spitzer, Senate Maj. Leader Bruno (who favors the plan as Mayor
Bloomberg funds some Republican Senatorial Candidates), Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver (who fortunately wants to consider alternatives to the plan),
Assemblyman Brodsky (who panned the idea in a recent report), as well as
other New York State Senators/Assemblymen.

NOTE: you MUST select "New York" from the drop-down menu to access ALL of
the above. If you select any other state, you will only be able to fax to
Mayor Bloomberg, The City Council Speaker, and Gov. Spitzer. I am
considering adding Gov. Corzine of NJ and Gov. Rell of CT if there is any
interest.

The second alert, http://www.lobbybyfax.com/lobby/selectstate.asp?alertid=37
, will send a fax to the 6 US Senators and 6 US Reps. in the US Congress who
sit on the (sub?) committee which oversees this special grant of funding for
congestion pricing-ish projects. This alert will request that they deny
funding to New York City as it has not sufficiently tried other alternatives
which are readily available and that by approving New York City's request,
they are effectively approving another motorist tax in a City and Region
which has more than its fair share.

A few notes about LobbyByFax:

1. What you are using is a development machine; it may be down for work, it
may break; it is old and we do not use it anymore other than for "proof of
concept" experiments and things of that nature. Please do not expect highly
fast fax sends or fancy graphics. (If someone wants to pay my employer for a
real alert on a production box, please call them and they would love to hear
from you! :) )

2. Neither Interpage.net nor LobbyByFax.com will in any way use your e-mail
address (if you provide one) or your mailing address (again, if you provide
one). We can not send out a fax without one, but you may provide either
where asked, and usually, at least for Congress, your reps. will try to
answer you if you so request. We also do not sell your IP information, or
anything else about you. I (we) are NOT doing this to make money, and I did
not spend all my time writing the alerts and putting them up there for any
remuneration since I get paid nothing to do things like that.

3. You CAN edit the alerts and add your own thoughts. If you say ANYTHING
threatening or use inappropriate language, you alert will be deleted and
never reach the selected recipients (LobbyByFax screens and filters such
content automatically - and it is pretty good at it! You will not know that
it was blocked, but no one will ever see it, trust me.)

4. There is a more detailed description of the alerts at:

   http://www.interpage.net/sub-lbf-alerts.html

  ... if you can not read the full alerts on the given LBF alert page (some
VERY VERY old
  browsers will not be able to scroll/edit the alerts.)

5. If you disagree with me, I politely do not care, that is, please do not
send me long emails as to why you can not breath in midtown New York or
whatever. I used to live there and go back a lot, I know what a mess New
York is in many areas, and I know that for 50 years trains, roads, airports
and everything else transportation-wise was more or less neglected, and if
the Mayor wants to solves congestion, there are a lot of things New York can
and should have done years ago (like removing tolls on outer TBTA facilities
to move traffic around Manhattan faster and cheaper, and using exiting old
rail lines for new services) which they can still do but instead want this
silly revenue grab. On the other hand, if you have something constructive to
say, or wish to add an alert of your own, please contact me via the
Interpage web-based contacts page at:

http://www.interpage.net/sub-contact.html

and put "for Bill" in the first line or the subject.

I do not expect everyone (or anyone) to agree with me, but if you do, please
take a minute (it really will not take even that long) and select one of the
alerts and voice your opposition to this plan.

Thank you!

Bill DeBello
INSI After Hours Support
www.interpage.net
+1 (510) 315-2750