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Many of you read my outrage when finding out about The Man At The Wheel being bumped off the Massachusetts Quarter in favor of a park in Lowell.  The outpouring of disgust in this decision has been overwhelming.  People have been asking what we can do, who we can call, what letters we can write.

Well Ray Lamont, Editor of The Gloucester Daily Times contacted me yesterday and asked what I had planned if anything and if we should try to make a difference.  So we’re teaming up and looking for all the help we can get in getting this petition out to folks.  Ray put together this letter addressed to Senator Kerry and Congressman Tierney-

I will be printing them out as a petition and bringing them to our local coffee shops and retailers.  I will also have a link to it in pdf form which you will be able to click and print and send in yourself.

Enough is enough.  We don’t get our fair share of school funding, they build huge research facilities in Woods Hole on the South Shore, they castrate our fishermen and consolidate our fishing industry through regulations, they force our harbor to remain in a DPA “for the good of the Commonwealth” while we get no benefits from it, and when it’s finally time to for us to get a little positive recognition- voted on by over 4 to 1 by the people and on a voting system put forth from the state itself, we get bumped in favor of a building in Lowell.  A building that could be placed anywhere.  The Man at the Wheel is uniquely Gloucester, Uniquely Massachusetts.

We’re sick and tired and we’re not gonna take it anymore.

WAS IT OVER WHEN THE GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR?

Here’s the form, copy and paste it and send it in.  By Monday we will have it around town at the coffee shops and I’ll post a list of other places for you to sign.

U.S. Senator John Kerry
U.S. Representative John Tierney
September 2009

Dear Sen. Kerry and Congressman Tierney,

I, the undersigned, respectfully request that you petition Congress to ask that the U,S, Mint revisit its decision to select the Lowell National Historical Park over the Gloucester Fishermen’s Memorial Man At The Wheel statute as the featured image on the back of the next edition of the Massachusetts quarter.

While we recognize that, due to miscommunication, there is now a belated question as to the Man At The Wheel’s eligibility for this honor, it’s important to note that the Man At The Wheel, an iconic symbol of the role of fishermen in the heritage of Gloucester and in Massachusetts, drew the support of more than 109,000 voters in the online poll commissioned and promoted by the office of Gov. Deval Patrick to make this choice based on the will of Massachusetts’ citizens,

For the U.S. Mint to unilaterally override that decision stands as a slap in the face to the people of Gloucester, to the governor’s office that coordinated the polling, and especially to all of the Massachusetts residents who took the time to make their feelings known regarding the Man at the Wheel and all that it represents.

We thank you in advance for your consideration.

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