Note:

On Thursday, September 3/9/2009, of this week, we received a letter of Mr. Ly Duc Bui from Vietnamese Cultural Temple/Tran Hung Dao Foundation. He requested a removal of his name and his non-profit organization from the list of Vietnamese American organizations in Seattle and vicinities of Washington in the below past letter. This letter ( Vietnamese version ) was already sent to Department of Planning and Development (DPD) of City of Seattle. Because of Mr. Bui Duc Ly’s request, we’d like to inform the group representatives–whose signatures were on this letter–the following clarification:

We had informed and presented clearly all deeds related to Little Saigon Seattle through face-to-face community meetings to all concerned participants and varieties of documents via different communication means to the community at large. This past letter with detailed comments on the Final EIS and draft land use recommendations was already sent officially on July 31, 2008, in order to alert about the danger of cultural erasure as well as the negative economic impact on Little Saigon Seattle section in the International District/China Town due to the City rezoning initiative. Its main purpose was to provide suggestions and ideas to protect cultural characteristics of Little Saigon, creating more open space, safety for pedestrians, affordable housing for the poor, and minimize negative impacts of traffic congestion.

Names of organizations and individual representatives would not be able to remove due to its submission sent more than a year ago. If you, ladies and gentlemen, now consider the intent and content of this letter no longer appropriate for current time, please take your initiative in writing your own letter directly to DPD to reflect your wish and opinion.

A Tidbit: On September 2nd, 2009, one day prior to Mr. Bui’s email, a letter signed by Mr. Dung Xuan Nguyen, a medical doctor in Tacoma and representative of an organization named “Vietnamese Community of Tacoma and Pierce County”, was passed to us by our agency staff at work. The envelope did not specify the addressees; yet there was the following wording “ATT: Executive Office” placed at its lower left corner. The letter, on the other hand, was addressed directly to the DPD staff. The main content of Mr. Dung X Nguyen’s letter was about a request for signature withdrawal from the below July 31, 2008 letter, and for not only his group but also four others located in Tacoma and Pierce county. Our agency passed the letter to us due to our name mentioned in the letter. However, Mr. Dung X Nguyen’s letter has nothing to do with our agency, nor communicate directly to us so we have it in disregard.

Vietnamese note (Lời ngỏ bản tiếng Việt)

Related document:

Letter to City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) on July 31, 2008, and English note (Thư kiến nghị cho DPD ngày 31/7/2008 liên hệ đến lời ngỏ)