….The project of a community center /mosque is being proposed by two organizations, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and their sister organization, the Cordoba Initiative. This past Wednesday night they made their presentation to the Community Board of lower Manhattan (CB1). Twelve people sit on the board and would you like to guess what the final vote was? Get ready to grab a barf bag … the 12 members voted unanimously to support the project. Yes, it’s not a typo, it was unanimous, all were in favor and, to give you an idea of how excited the board members were, they applauded during the presentation.
In an article in the New York Daily News on Thursday, retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches said, “I realize it’s not all of them, but I don’t want to have to go down to a memorial where my son died on 9/11 and look at a mosque. If you ask me, it’s a religion of hate.” Deputy Chief Riches lost his son Jim, a firefighter, on 9/11.
….The estimated cost for the 13 story building is $100 million dollars. According to page 8 of the ASMA website financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009 they have “temporarily restricted net assets” as follows:
UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) $ 53,664
MDG3 Fund (Millennium Development Goals) $481,942 (Also a UN group)
Hunt Alternatives Fund $15,000
Carnegie Corporation of N.Y. $ 144,752
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund $50,000
Qatar government fund $576,312
Interestingly, I had no trouble locating all of the groups as linked above, except for the Qatar government fund, which donated over half a million dollars to ASMA in 2009.