Pile o’ 9/11 petitions

The 9/11 Truth group has so far collected more than 30,000 petition signatures, shown at right, for its NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative. The group, which seeks an “authentic, comprehensive investigation of 9/11,” had planned to collect that number of petition signatures — the required amount to put the initiative on the ballot — so that voters could weigh in on the issue in this year’s November election. But Frank Morales, one of the group’s members, said they feared the City Council would “sit on” the petitions, then invalidate a chunk of them at the last minute, leaving 9/11 Truth scrambling to collect new ones. Instead, they now aim to collect 75,000 signatures as a safety cushion and hope to get the issue voted on in next year’s election. “We’ve got to get them insured,” Morales said of the signatures collected thus far, being kept in an East Village apartment at an undisclosed location. “We’re going to make it a mayoral issue in ’09,” Morales said. “We didn’t want it to be overshadowed by all the presidential stuff. … The families have hundreds of questions,” he said of the need for a new investigation. Morales personally does not believe any of the terrorist hijackers were on the four planes that day, and feels at least nine of the 19 may be alive. “There’s the possibility the planes were remote commandeered,” he noted. To download the petition or learn how to volunteer, go to www.nyc911initiative.org or call the initiative’s hotline at 646-537-1755.