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Burlingame wants to make sure her brother's story survives. "You have children who were very young on 9/11 or maybe not even born yet who have no idea what actually happened that day," she said. "That story needs to be told, and it needs to be preserved for future generations." The subcontractors at the site were recently paid $15 million that had been owed to them, but they won't return to the job until there's an agreement on future payment and a new schedule is adopted, said Ron Berger, the executive director of the Subcontractors Trade Association. Berger said this week his union is meeting with officials about future plans and he's expecting a new completion date of June or July 2013
-- a decision that would raise project costs further because of the overtime required. But no deal can be made until the port and the foundation come to an agreement. For some family members, the problems at the 16-acre site feel like an unpleasant flashback. In 2005 and 2006, bitter negotiations between the Port Authority and private developer Larry Silverstein stalled construction on all the office towers planned for the site, with port officials calling Silverstein greedy for demanding givebacks on the rent he paid, and Silverstein saying the agency had never turned over buildable land for his office towers. In 2006, the memorial was redesigned after its projected cost rocketed and some began to question whether the project could move forward. "It's all politics, and it's ridiculous," said Jim Riches, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. "They should put politics aside and get down to business." Riches has given the museum the crushed helmet found next to his son's body when it was unearthed six months after the attacks. He can ask for it back at any time, he notes, but he won't
-- despite his frustration with the delays. "Maybe 20 years from now, 50 years from now -- they won't know who I am, they won't know who my son is," Riches said. "But you know what? Some little kid is going to go in there and say,
'Look at this, this fireman went in there to help people, and then he was crushed to death by these terrorists.' ... It's a powerful message."
[Associated
Press;
Associated Press writers Amy Westfeldt in New York and David Porter in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.
Follow Samantha Gross at http://twitter.com/samanthagross.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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