Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The dirty little secret

The dirty little secret of advocacy is that a handwritten letter to an official is worth 10, maybe 50 petition signatures.  The reason?    Signing a petition is easy, takes a second,  they'll probably even hand you a pen.
Writing a letter is harder- you have to pick out a card, you have to find a pen, and an envelope and a stamp- more importantly you have to have to figure out what to say.

i've written and re-written this post many times- I don't want to be preachy,  but I feel so strongly about this, and I long to spur any of you from the Boston area into action.

So I'm going to just publish the letter I wrote to the Mass DOT administrator on the subject of the Longfellow bridge.  I urge you to find the time to write your own.  I feel strongly that option B (see here or here for explanations is the best long term.  It gives us the most options and avoids a lousy "pinch point" situation for pedestrians at the Boston side.






I know it's a busy time of year, but please, consider taking the 15 minutes to write:

Luisa Paiewonsky
Administrator, MassDOT Highway Division

Ten Park Plaza, Suite 3170
Boston, MA 02116


To "sweeten" the deal, if you're in Boston: send me photos of your stamped addressed letter, and contact me offline at Bikinginheels@yahoo.com, and I'll throw in a prize.  It will involve chocolate.  Never say I'm above a little bribery in the service of a good cause.

4 comments:

  1. we could be accused of corruption if this post is discovered : )
    I will try to write a letter

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  2. I have written my letter! I even have extra stamps on hand from all my Christmas cards.

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  3. I can affirm that any "real" letter certainly catches my eye. Even a hand-lettered envelope stands out.

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  4. Very inspiring! Thanks for the little push. Hmm, now to think of the most letter worthy cause.

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