When I got to work today, I had a message from the Virginia Civil Defense League.

That’s the group angry over the lawsuit brought against gun dealers by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s coalition, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Two of the gun dealers are in Virginia and so the league decided to raffle off a handgun and a rifle. The original idea was to raise money for the dealers’ defense (though the contest was later modified after Virginia officials objected.)

The stunt—tacky and tasteless—was called the “Bloomberg Gun Giveway” and it was about to take place when 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech were massacred. And if you thought that was the end of it, you would be wrong.

Apparently the group went ahead Thursday night. That was the message on my phone this morning. On its Web site it has the names of the winners and a link to photos, one of which mocks a protester.

What it doesn’t have is this information from The Washington Times:

Among the protesters were parents of Mary Karen Read and Reema Samaha, two of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. Peter and Cathy Read and Joseph Samaha held posters picturing their daughters.

”’This doesn’t go away for the rest of your life,’ said Mr. Read, who was wearing an orange Virginia Tech hat and maroon ‘Virginia Tech Dad’ sweatshirt.”

You could probably find the whole gamut of opinions about guns and gun control among the parents of the victims. But you’ve got to admire these parents for showing up despite their pain.

By the way, the dealers were sued because they allegedly sold firearms illegally to undercover investigators. And the mayors belonging to the coalition—including Phil Amicone of Yonkers and Ernie Davis of Mount Vernon—don’t want the guns to end up in their cities.

My column tomorrow is about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan.

This morning, the deputy mayor of London, Nicky Gavron, spoke about her city’s experience.

She helped to devise the scheme, and thinks it a great success. But biased or not, she was worth listening to.

Two New York City councilmen Eric Gioia and John Liu, both Democrats who represent districts in Queens, were there too and both had interesting observations.

As a child, Gioia said, he used to drive into Manhattan with his father to deliver flowers from his father’s florist. Not any more. Traffic makes the trip unprofitable.

His point was that New Yorkers and New York businesses already pay a fee for the congestion.

Liu said he thought some small businesses might welcome the mayor’s plan even if it meant a $21 fee for delivery trucks. They pay anyway, he said, in the form of parking tickets.

PHOTO: Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, left, with Nicky Gavron, the deputy mayor. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

In March, first-graders at Purchase Elementary School held a read-a-thon to benefit the children’s reading room at the Coachman Family Center. That’s a homeless shelter in White Plains.

Here’s an update from the children.

Their grand total of money raised: $5,786.

Congratulations.

Westchester County wants all supermarkets in the county to publicize the dangers of eating fish with high levels of mercury.

Pregnant and nursing women, women of child-bearing age and young children should avoid the fish.

The county has asked supermarkets to distribute a brochure called “Mercury and Fish,” which at first many did. But by late last year, the number had dropped off. Plus there are some hold-outs.

You can understand the reluctance of some supermarkets. They are, after all, in the business of selling food, not warning you away from it.

At the same time, some kinds of fish have high levels of mercury. It’s a fact of our industrial world.

There’s this from the group Environmental Defense:

“Mercury is a highly poisonous metal that poses a serious health risk to developing fetuses, babies and children, who may suffer brain damage and learning disabilities from prolonged or repeated exposure to small amounts of mercury. Although the metal occurs naturally in the environment, mercury levels in our air, land and water have increased dramatically since the rise of industrialization in the late 19th century”

So here are some fish you should avoid if you are in one of the vulnerable groups: swordfish, shark, king mackerel, albacore tuna and tilefish, which is also known as golden snapper and golden bass.

Lee Woodruff and her husband, Bob, the ABC newsman injured in Iraq, were widely interviewed about his long recovery. Now here’s the chance to hear her in person.

Lee Woodruff will deliver the keynote address at Westchester County’s “Every Woman’s Conference” on Saturday.

She will also talk abut her book, “In an Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing,” which she wrote with her husband.

The conference will be from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

Another speaker will be Dr. Lynne Perry-Bottinger, a cardiologist who will discuss disparities in health care and ways to prevent heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Transportation to the conference is available. More information “here.”:http://www.westchestergov.com/events.htm

PHOTO: Lee Woodruff and her husband pose for a photo at their home in Rye in February. ( Mark Vergari )

Jeffrey Deskovic was in Albany this week lobbying against the death penalty.

You can understand why. He was wrongly convicted of killing a school mate and imprisoned unjustly for 16 years.

He was never eligible for the death penalty — it wasn’t even in effect at the time of his conviction — but the crime for which he was found guilty is the kind that could have qualified.

There’s a new push to reinstate the death penalty in New York state for killers of police officers. It has come about — not surprisingly — after a state trooper was killed in a shootout with a man in the Catskill Mountains.

His death, it turned out, was a result of friendly fire, which somehow makes it even worse.

There is some support for the death penalty in Albany — Gov. Eliot Spitzer backs it for cop killers.

But whatever your feelings about capital punishment, however much sympathy you have for the trooper’s family, Deskovic’s presence should give you pause. What if he had been put to death?

William Ross is 69, and lives in Yonkers. He has been a teacher, playwright, producer, Little League coach and artist.

In October 2000, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
He has gradually become dependent on others and now can move only an eyebrow. He spends his time watching television and reading online, and he says, he has come to realize that what matters most are small things like watching his grandchildren play and teaching them to be Yankee fans.
Ross is one of 31 people chosen to be part of a campaign by the Muscular Dystrophy Association—one for each day of the month of May, which is ALS Awareness Month. The goal is to raise awareness about the disease.

Ross’s photograph and a short profile will be featured on Friday on the association’s “Web site”:http://www.mda.org.

And here is a painting he did of Lou Gehrig, “Pride of the Yankees,” which depicts Gehrig giving his farewell speech. According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Web site: “This is the third work by Ross to be accepted by MDA’s permanent Art Collection. While the two earlier works — “Twilight in Paradise” and “Heaven on a Summer Night” — were completed when Ross still had the use of his hands, “Pride of the Yankees” was painted using a mouthstick device to hold the paintbrush in the artist’s mouth.”

Want to know where to get rid of household chemicals safely?

Dispose of your old cell phone?

Find a green dry-cleaner or a farmers market near you?

Westchester County has charted its environmental resources on a “green map”:http://giswww.westchestergov.com/wcgis/GreenMaps/home.htm.

It’s a great idea.

You can also look for a nature preserve or a park or stores with energy efficient products.

The map is a work in progress, and the county is looking for suggestions about what else to include.

Give it a try.

The Innocence Project and a group of New York lawmakers unveiled a package of legal reforms today that are intended to address cases of wrongful convictions in New York.

The proposed legislation would do the following:

— create rules for the preservation of evidence
— allow testing of DNA evidence even if someone has pleaded guilty
— clarify that judges can order the use of forensic databases to test crime scene evidence
— speed up the compensation of those who have been wrongfully convicted
— and form a commission to to study the state’s wrongful convictions.

New York state is among the top states in DNA exonerations. There have been 23, including nine in the last 16 months.

Probably the best known in Westchester is the case of Jeffrey Deskovic, who was wrongly imprisoned for 16 years for a killing he did not commit. Yesterday, another man got 20 years for the slaying.

One last comment on the fresh fruits and vegetables being distributed by the Food Bank for Westchester.

The women at the WestHELP apartments in Mount Vernon — one of the places where the food is delivered — have built some cooking classes around the fare. The produce is accompanied by a sheet of recipes, which last week included carrot apple salad and black bean veggie wraps.

Nikisha Naughton and Susie Gross, two mothers who were staying at WestHELP, both said they especially appeciated the fresh food for their children.

“The cans have too much salt,” Gross said.

Families sometimes arrive with very little, WestHELP officials said, and the food pantry on site helps them get settled.

The WestHELP complex was featured at the beginning of my essay on WRNN this evening. (I had written about making the television essay in a column and expected it to be on last night. It was pushed back a day.)