Concurrent with an election that produced the biggest rearrangement of Detroit City Council in memory, city voters also put a stake in the long-maligned at-large council system that held for most of the last century.
This council sea change included the retirement of two council members (Barbara-Rose Collins and Sheila Cockrel), the withdrawal under indictment and plea deal of a third (Monica Conyers), the perhaps unprecedented rejection of an incumbent in the primary of a fourth (Martha Reeves) and the rare rejection of an incumbent in the general election (Alberta Tinsley-Talabi).
That’s not to mention to ascension to the top-vote-getting council presidency by political novice Charles Pugh and the reversal of fortune for former Council President and interim Mayor Ken Cockrel. Cockrel finished mid-pack (fourth place), just ahead of fellow incumbent Brenda Jones; incumbents Kwame Kenyatta and JoAnne Watson finished in eighth and ninth place respectively.
Newcomers Gary Brown and Saunteel Jenkins placed second and third between Pugh and Cockrel. Newcomers Andre Spivey and James Tate landed in the No. 7 and 8 slots between Jones and Kenyatta.
But one thing is certain is that this new council lineup will operate in a different political environment than its predecessors, since voters also approved 72-28 percent the proposal to replace the all at-large council system with one that has seven district seats and two at-large seats. Which is to say that the system that brought these nine winners on Tuesday is no more — and Tuesday’s winning strategies will have to be adjusted.
Will the top vote getters (and aspirants) posture differently than otherwise — with eyes on the at-large seats of 2013? And while we haven’t plotted out the addresses of the new council members, and while the new district boundaries are yet to be drawn, if the past is any guide, most of these candidates come from the city’s middle class islands, and more than a few of them are neighbors. Chances are that some of the council members eyeing district seats will be looking across the meeting table at likely opponents, and they’ll know that their potential audience is a specific community as well as the city at large.
Another change in the game: Unlike in the past, council candidates will have new incentives for challenging one another, which has largely been absent from the popularity contests that have passed for campaigns in the past. That could mean more negativity, rancor and factionalism in city politics — particularly as we near the next elections. But it could also bring the kind of feet-to-the-fire debates and discussions that the city needs more than ever.
What are the lessons of Tuesday's city election?
Well, for one thing, we’ve seen how much influence endorsements by the city’s daily papers don’t have. Both papers, after endorsing Pugh, withdrew those endorsements after his home went into foreclosure. It wasn’t just the problem with personal finances — there was also concern about Pugh’s candor during the interview process. Despite all that negative ink, Pugh still went on to capture the top council spot. So much for the power of editorial boards.
In some ways, Pugh’s election to the council presidency reflects both well and poorly on the city’s voters. On the one hand, a guy who had little more going for him than high name recognition because of his years on local TV gathered more votes than a solid, conscientious veteran like Cockrel, whose experience both as interim mayor and council president by all rights should have earned him the top spot.
On the other hand, in Pugh, Detroit has taken a big step forward by electing its first openly gay public official. That is a landmark the city should rightfully be proud of.
Overall, the new council promises to be infinitely more professional than the collection of clowns — Conyers, Reeves and Collins — that caused the body to become a national laughing stock.
As far as the mayor’s race: So much for Tom Barrow’s internal poll he claimed showed him crushing Bing. In a profession where credibility is a key currency, we’d say Barrow is going to be operating with a deficit if he ever again seeks public office. (We heard him on the radio ruling out another mayoral bid, but another office?)
On the other hand, the fact that Barrow was able to cut significantly into Bing’s massive lead coming out of the August primary, when he captured nearly 75 percent of the vote among a field of six, says something about the clout Detroit municipal labor unions still have. Barrow, despite the baggage of a prison stint for income tax evasion and fraud, with broad union support, was able to capture 41 percent of the vote.
And, finally, despite all the recent unearthing of past financial mismanagement of Detroit Public Schools money, voters still voted for a $500 million school bond measure. At a time when unemployment in the city is approaching 30 percent, in a town awash in hard times, its residents are still willing to pony up big money to help provide the best for the city’s children. In a city that has become the poster child for post-industrial decay and ruin, Detroiters have just shown that they haven’t given up hope for the future.
All in all, there is much to feel good about on this morning after.
Attorneys for Dwayne Provience will ask a Wayne County judge to release him from prison at a hearing on Tuesday after Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Friday dropped opposition to having his conviction overturned.
Provience, convicted in 2001 of murdering Rene Hunter,
is serving a 32- to 62-year sentence. In a separate but related murder
trial with a different victim and defendant two years later, Wayne
County prosecutors argued someone else killed Hunter. (See “Tale of two homicides,” in this week’s Metro Times.)
Provience,
represented by the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law
School, filed a motion this year asking that his conviction be set
aside and he be released.
Worthy’s office had fought his request until this week. In an e-mailed statement, Worthy told Metro Times that her office made the decision after reviewing evidence that Provience “should have been privy to at the time of his trial.
“We
agree with the defense that this evidence does entitle the defendant to
a new trial. For that reason, we will not issue any further statement
regarding specific facts of the case,” Worthy said in a statement.
Bridget McCormack, co-director of the Innocence Clinic, says she doubts that there will be a new trial.
"There
won't be a new trial because Dwayne Provience didn't do it and we have
shown that," she says. "But I am grateful that Kym Worthy has done the
right thing."
The renewal of
"Having a park in downtown
Located just east of the
The dedication ceremony drew an audience numbering in the hundreds who heard remarks from Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other speakers involved in the park's creation and funding.
But it was Milliken, governor from 1969 to 1983, who drew
the standing ovation with his thoughtful speech about environmental
preservation, politics and
Here are some excerpts:
It is a day to
recognize the vision of those who years ago could look past the abandon
industrial sites and cement silos and see the potential for a new riverfront
that could lead the way to a new
If one cares about the future of
For far too long the politics of division have played too
large a role in southeast
Milliken referenced the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech where he discussed "little black boys and girls" not being judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their characters:
He went on to say that I have a dream that one day little
black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys
and white girls as sisters and brothers. I hope that this park on this
magnificent riverfront can be a place in Michigan where little white, black,
Latino, Native American and Asian boys and girls do join hands. For people from
every race and background, a place where we can dream together about a new
Candidates for Detroit City Council are keeping busy racing from one forum to the next as Election Day approaches. But there’s only one event that we’re aware of that will focus on the many crucial environmental issues facing the city.
Thirteen local environmental, community and social justice organizations will hold an “open forum” from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, at Sacred Heart Activities Building, 3451 Rivard St. (in the Eastern Market area). According to organizers, topics of discussion will include issues such as air quality, water conservation and accessibility, clean energy, economic development to create green jobs, land management, and food security.
Another issue certain to be a focus of discussion is the issue of incineration, which has been a key battle from many of the groups involved in the event. Sponsors include Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, East Michigan Environmental Action Council, Ecology Center, Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit, Hush House, People’s Water Board Coalition, Riverbend Community Association, Rosedale Recycles, Michigan Environmental Council, Sierra Club, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision and others.
At least five candidates have agreed to participate.
“The goal of the forum is to give voters the opportunity to hear candidates’ plans to meet environmental challenges,” says Sandra Turner-Handy, a spokesperson for the Forum and the Coalition for a New Business Model for Detroit Solid Waste, which advocates a recycling, waste materials recovery system for Detroit.
For more information contact Margaret Weber at mmgweber@gmail.com or 313-938-1133.
In a 2007 inspection report the Ambassador Bridge owners fought to keep secret, the span is described as being “in overall fair condition” but in need of structural, electrical, steel and surface repairs.
“I make no allegations about the safety or lack of safety of the bridge,” says U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn), who today released the 700-page report to media and promised to post its executive summary on his website within a few days. “One of the reasons I’m releasing this is so that smarter people than John Dingell can look at it and arrive at better and informed judgments.”
In February, the congressman filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the report from the federal government. The bridge’s owner, the Detroit International Bridge Co., fought the report’s release until yesterday, when U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan denied the company’s motion to block the disclosure.
The company claimed release of the report would both provide proprietary information to its competitors and pose a security risk.
“The public interest in knowing the conditions of bridge exceeds any potential security risk in releasing bridge inspection information,” Dingell says.
Duggan agreed with Dingell, ruling that the public’s right to know the condition of the bridge outweighed the bridge company’s fears.
What exactly those security fears are hasn’t been addressed. In fact, the report itself recommends the bridge company “consider a security assessment study for the bridge to primarily identify any existing component vulnerabilities and to develop countermeasures as needed for the vulnerabilities in conjunction with existing security measures.”
That’s particularly interesting, because, since 2001, the bridge company has been using national security concerns to justify its actions, including sealing off part of the city-owned Riverside Park adjacent to the bridge. As of 2007, according to this inspection report, a security assessment had not been done.
Bridge company officials did not immediately return telephone calls to Metro Times.
The report itself contains both 2005 and 2007 inspection information collected by a Pennsylvania construction engineering firm at the behest of DIBC. The report was given to state and federal governmental departments. But the state of Michigan had agreed to a bridge company request to exempt the report from being publicly disclosed.
Dingell, however, got the report from the Federal Highway Administration, and says he also is seeking the 2008 and 2009 inspections, which he also intends to make publicly available.
One thing that remains to be determined is what experts who review the report will have to say about the bridge company’s claims that the new bridge it wants to build adjacent to the Ambassador is necessary because of the deteriorated condition of the existing span.
The report released today contains descriptions of some needed repairs: deficiencies in main cables, cracks in paint, lack of caulking, exposed reinforcing steel and unsound concrete, for example. Some of the repairs have been made or were scheduled to be, the report notes. Dingell points out none of the issues has caused federal officials to shut the bridge for safety precautions.
Another question will be whether the company is doing all it can to preserve the existing bridge, or if it is intentionally letting the bridge, first opened to traffic in 1929, fall into disrepair in an attempt to help justify building the new, larger bridge it wants.
A couple weeks back, we took Time magazine to task for its retelling of — Time’s headline — “The Tragedy of Detroit.” The region’s stark segregation is one of the elements of that, but, as we argued in a blog posting last week, the piece overplays the role of the 1967 riot and underplays other equally troubling factors.
In examining a key factor, the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion puts the federal government on trial – even if it’s only a mock trial — on Friday, Oct. 16. Judge Victoria Roberts of the U.S. District Court in Detroit presides as attorneys argue the fictional — but hardly unrealistic — case of Miller v. Federal Housing Administration, in which attorneys for Miller, an African American, will argue that FHA policies kept him from buying a home in the suburbs in 1949 and 1960, first through FHA-endorsed racially restrictive covenants and then through red lining.
Following the trial, panels will examine how racial housing patterns, in turn, “impact health care, education, employment, business development, entrepreneurship, urban development and mass transit.” Other discussions during the daylong program include the history southeast Michigan housing and the current crisis in home foreclosures.
“Michigan’s history of discrimination continues to impede the state’s progress, and this is something we can only overcome through awareness,” Roundtable President and CEO Thomas Costello said in a press release. “We cannot move to a new beginning without recognizing history.”
The program at WSU costs $30, including continental breakfast, lunch and parking. More information at miroundtable.org or call 517-485-6600.
On the evening before the roundtable, an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit looks at the intertwined histories of race and housing in metropolitan Detroit.
Meanwhile, looking to the future of the city, the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan, hosts a panel next week on “The Role of Urban Food Retail in Detroit’s Economic Development and Revitalization.” Panelists include Randall Fogelman of the Eastern Market Corporation and Margaret Garry of the Michigan Department of Social Services.
That program is held at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Annenberg Auditorium, 1120 Weill Hall, 735 South State St., Ann Arbor.
That program is to be held Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 4-5:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public. More information at closup.umich.edu or by calling 734-647-4091.
Talk about a tricky situation.
Pulitzer Prize winning Free Press reporters M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer yesterday found themselves covering a story they were directly involved in.
It’s an explosive issue that centers, in part, on the guy who now appears to be the person most responsible for the two star reporters receiving that Pulitzer — attorney Michael Stefani, the lawyer for three whistle-blowing cops who successfully sued the city and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, setting off a chain of events that resulted in Kilpatrick losing his job and going to jail.
During a hearing being held by the Attorney Disciplinary Board to determine if Stefani is guilty of any ethical violations for his role in crafting a secret deal to settle the whistleblower cases brought by former cops Gary Brown, Harold Nelthrope and Walter Harris, Stefani disclosed that he provided copies of incriminating text messages (along with thousands more) to the Free Press for “safe keeping.”
Actually, if you read the Detroit News account of the hearing, the text messages were given specifically to Schaefer. That detail was omitted from the story Schaefer and Elrick wrote about Stefani’s testimony.
Months after receiving the test messages — which proved that Kilpatrick and chief of staff Christine Beatty lied under oath about conducting an affair and firing Brown — the Freep revealed excerpts of the messages. Their blockbuster report prompted an investigation by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who eventually won convictions of Kilpatrick and Beatty on obstruction of justice charges.
Both papers reported that Stefani could now face criminal perjury charges himself as a result of conflicting answers previously given when asked if he was the Freep’s source for the messages.
Particularly interesting was one paragraph in the Freep’s story today. The lawyer’s testimony, Schaefer and Elrick reported, “set off speculation that Stefani was the paper’s source for the text message scandal coverage that ultimately brought down the Detroit mayor’s administration.”
“Speculation” that he was the source?
Sounds to us like the only “speculation” at this point is coming from the very people who know for certain if Stefani, for whatever bizarre reason, might possibly now be lying about giving the text messages to the paper.
Either that, or the reporters are leaving open the possibility that Stefani wasn’t the only source of the messages.
The third possibility is that the paragraph is a disingenuous red herring.
Both papers reported that Paul Anger, editor and publisher of the Free Press, refused comment.
Schaefer and Elrick could also have included in their report something like, “The reporters covering this story also refuse to comment on Stefani’s assertions involving them.”
At the risk of sounding like a Monday morning quarterback, it seems at this point fair to question why their editors had Schaefer and Elrick covering this hearing given the possibility Stefani would make the disclosure he did, putting the reporters in a predicament no journalist wants.
However, looking ahead instead of back, now that this cat’s out of the bag, the question is will someone else from the Free Press be writing about this in the future? Or will the reporters continue to be put in a position where they are covering a story in which they are key players?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at Judge Beverly Hayes-Sipes’ ruling that the Detroit International Bridge Co. is illegally occupying a section of Riverside Park. After all, from the time nearly a year ago when city of first sued to regain control of land that the company fenced off just after the 9/11 attacks, it has seemed obvious the company owned by billionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Nonetheless, it appeared at times as if the 36th District Court judge might have been buying the bridge company’s claims that the fence was needed to protect its adjacent Ambassador Bridge from terrorists. In the bridge company’s view, security concerns trumped the city’s right to control its own property. And there’s no doubt the bridge — which carries about 25 percent of all the goods moving between the United States and Canada — is a legitimate target for terrorists looking to cause economic havoc. But when Hayes-Sipes recently issued her written opinion, she came down squarely on the side of the city, giving the company 90 days to take down the fence and clear off the parkland. I’ve been following the story ever since former Free Press reporter-turned-blogger Joel Thurtell first wrote about his encounter with a “shotgun-toting” security guard who tried to detain him for taking pictures of the bridge from public property. Along the way, here’s some of what we learned: The bridge company put up signs warning that trespassers on the 150-foot swath of public parkland would be prosecuted, and invoked the specter of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to really throw a scare into people. But, as we reported last year — and was substantiated in court — no one from Homeland Security on any level ever authorized the fence. Despite the bridge company’s claims that security was a paramount concern, there’s no equivalent fence along the eastern (downtown) side of the bridge — even though bridge company President Dan Stamper insisted that fences completely blocked off access to the bridge. After this paper produced a video clip proving Stamper’s claim to be false, WXYZ TV’s Heather Catallo did a similar report. She captured a stammering Stamper on tape claiming to be surprised to learn that said fence didn’t actually exist. As I wrote previously, how stupid does he think the public is? Did he really expect people to believe that a company supposedly so concerned about security matters could not have known that this crucial piece of infrastructure was somehow left partially unprotected, and that this oversight was accidentally left uncorrected for eight years? Despite the repeated claims about security concerns, it became clear that the bridge company wants control of the parkland so that it can build a second span adjacent to its Ambassador Bridge. Obtaining the property is so crucial the company told the U.S. Coast Guard, which is responsible for granting permission for the new bridge, that it had already obtained the land. Can you say “credibility problem”? It’s important to note at this point that, with the removal from office of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose relationship with Matty was far too close for comfort, the city is finally standing up to Moroun. That began during Ken Cockrel’s brief mayoral stint and is continuing under the Bing administration. This court victory is important too. It shows that even someone as politically powerful as Moroun isn’t above the law, and that fear of terrorism — even when the concerns are legitimate — doesn’t justify trampling on people’s rights. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” says Thurtell about the way the whole thing played out. Among other things, it demonstrates the impact a lone reporter with an independent blog can have in our new media world. “Because of the perceived need for balance, I couldn’t have written that story the way I did if I was still at the Free Press or any other conventional newspaper,” he says. “But with the blog, I was able to just go home and write it. I was upset about the way I was treated, and then I found out that others had been treated the same way.” “I think there was this groundswell of opposition to Matty Moroun out there,” he observes. “What writing that story did was like opening up a valve.” Thurtell didn’t do it by himself, of course. This rag has been all over the story, and other local media eventually picked up on it as well. And now the city has wrested control of its park back from a man so rich and powerful he seemed not that long ago to have an air of invincibility. No more. As Thurtell says, “It’s really quite amazing.”
We were wondering what was going to come of Time Inc.’s much-touted Assignment Detroit. That’s the project that includes buying a house in West Village, near the better-known Indian Village, to house a retinue of correspondents, some for short stints, others for the long haul. Encompassing representatives of Time, Fortune, Money, Essence and Sports Illustrated, their associated websites and CNNmoney, that’s a striking commitment of journalistic resources these days. And no doubt it’s driven by a desire to do more than the kind of drive-by journalism that the city’s seen all too many times. (It’s also a great advertisement for Detroit real estate bargains, since they’ve let it be known that their six-bedroom, four-bath manse would have cost half a million in most other cities; they got it for one-fifth or less of that.)
Well, the biggest sign of the editorial investment is out now, a Time magazine cover story, "Detroit: The Death -- and Possible Life of a Great City," that’s a mixture of boilerplate on the city’s demise and the Big Three-UAW slide … with a little ray of optimism about the alternative energy for not-so-big auto… and a take on former Mayor Coleman Young that’s mind-numbingly simplified.
Among the chief reasons “Detroit careened off the road,” writer Daniel Okrent tells us, is “the corrosive two-decade rule of a black politician who cared more about retribution than about resurrection … a talented politician who spent much of his 20 years in office devoting his talents to the politics of revenge.” His posture to the city’s remaining white residents “could have been summed up in the phrase Now it’s our turn.” His response to job losses was “good riddance.” And he was clearly a politician who had no interest in working with suburban politicians “who detested him every bit as much as he had demonized them.”
We’re hardly uncritical when it comes to Young. We sometimes joke about the incinerator as Detroit’s answer to the Aswan Dam, and lament the mentality that turned the charming, grassy knoll of the original Chene Park into an also-ran Pine Knob on the river. Don’t get us started.
But the massive efforts to carve out city neighborhoods for the GM Poletown and eastside Chrysler plants hardly suggest a mayor who was unbothered by the job situation here; and while he should have had a better sense of what keeps small businesses in the city — in fact, he should have spent a little more time in general thinking about the small things that make cities livable as well as the big ones — we’re hard-pressed to see where his attitude amounted to “good riddance.”
The regional tax that provided for the expansion of Cobo Hall in the 1980s — then on the verge of being obsolete — couldn’t have happened without skill in cooperating with political forces across Eight Mile. And if Young’s relationships with white politicos admittedly ran hot and cold, redevelopment of the Foxtown area, and what other such successes the city pulled off, couldn’t have happened without alliances with white business. You wouldn’t have guessed any such things possible from the account of Okrent, a former Detroiter who recalls the seemingly halcyon ’50s and early ’60s of his youth.
Bill McGraw, one of the most city-savvy voices of the Detroit Free Press for many years, was also a consummate Young observer. Last Sunday he said farewell to readers in a column that included a short, but far more nuanced appraisal of the articulately foul-mouthed mayor:
Smart, witty, charming, well intentioned and misunderstood, Young in his first two terms was probably Detroit's best mayor during the city's 50-year decline. His combativeness about racism was a tough pill for many white people to swallow, and he stayed in office far too long.
Too bad Bill wasn’t given more space to talk about Young and his other swan song impressions — seemed Bill was just getting warmed up when the piece ended — and too bad the Time piece never bothered to tap the knowing observations of Bill and plenty of others around town with similar immersion in the subject.
Interestingly, on “The Detroit Blog,” another component of
Assignment Detroit, Time staffer Darrell Dawsey, a Detroit native, takes much the same tack in criticizing Okrent, who came in from — as Dawsey puts — the magazine’s “mothership” to write his piece. (The blog, by the way seems to building an interesting composite picture of the city. Subtitled “One year. One city. Endless opportunities.” — you gotta say they’re starting off with a positive attitude. We haven’t spent as much time with another Assignment Detroit blog at CNNmoney, but it too seems well worth checking out.)
A couple other thoughts about the package:
• Even as boilerplate on the city’s decline, the Time piece draws more on the thinking of Ze’ev Chafets Devil's Night and Other True Tales of Detroit, (making the 1967 riot a pivot point, ignoring the degree to which whites and capital were already fleeing the city) than on the longer and more complex — and we’d say informed — view of Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis. Dawsey makes a similar argument — without naming Chafets or Sugrue — for the longer view in his blog posting. (We’ve written at length about Sugrue in the past in the context of recent Detroit historians and an interview about a visit to his now despairing childhood Detroit neighborhood and the essay that grew out of that visit.)
• You don’t have to be black nationalist to wonder about the Time “Committee to Save Detroit,” a posed group shot of Oakland County Exec L. Brooks Patterson, urban farmer Greg Willerer, Quicken CEO Dan Gilbert, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, blight buster John J. George, charter schools exec Doug Ross, Riverfront Conservancy leader Faye Nelson, and state Department of Human Services Director Ismael Ahmed. Our best count puts just two African-Americans — Worthy and Nelson — on the committee.
• And then there’s always the image issue, in the literal sense of the word — typically the Time package is heavy on dilapidation shots, including the cover. Just how do you represent this place? Well, to represent one kind of representation, we’ve added to our vocabulary the term “ruin porn.” That’s after reading the transcript from the NPR program On the Media, discussing the genre in general and the Time Detroit depiction in particular. 
Just caught on the Web
Heather Catallo’s story from Friday for WXYZ/Channel 7 about the Ambassador Bridge Co. and its heavy-handed efforts to build a second span. This is, admittedly, a tough story for TV news because it contains so many threads. But Catallo and crew did a good job covering different aspects of the story. What tickled us thoroughly, though, was watching bridge company president Dan Stamper squirm in his seat when asked about the fence erected in Riverside Park to form a “buffer zone” just intended to protect the crucial span from terrorists following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Previously, Dancin’ Dan told this paper that the east (or downtown) side of the bridge was as well-protected as the west. We proved that claim to be false a few weeks back when intern Jacob-Hurwitz Goodman and I went out with a video camera and showed that there’s no equivalent to the Riverside Park fence – which the city says is illegal and wants removed from its property – on the east side.
Instead of claiming the existence of a fence that doesn’t exist, as he did with us, Stamper expressed surprise upon supposedly learning from Catallo that – yikes! – there isn’t any barrier on the bridge’s east side.
His reaction to this news flash is a perfect example of why Stamper and the bridge company owned by Grosse Pointe billionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun have zero credibility.
Stamper and the company’s lawyers have been relentless in their insistence that the Ambassador — which carries about 25 percent of all the commercial truck traffic between Canada and the United States — is a prime target for terrorists interested is delivering a devastating economic blow.
Given that reality, how could the president of the company owning the bridge not have noticed at some point in the last eight years that only one side is protected by a fence?
Eight years! And in all that time, Stamper never noticed only one side of his company’s incredibly valuable bridge is protected by a fence! And he still didn’t realize it after we proved his claim to be untrue, both in print and on the Web.
After stammering pitifully for a few moments – you could see him desperately trying to dredge up some plausible answer – Stamper, finally, told Catallo, that she was, for the first time, “bringing it to my attention. We’ll deal with that.”
How stupid does he think we are?
Of course, he knew, just as he knows that completely blocking off access to the American side of the bridge is absolutely impossible because train tracks cross underneath it. But, it appears, Stamper would rather appear moronically incompetent than admit the truth.
And the truth is that the bridge company needs that swath of Riverside Park to build its second span — needs it so badly that the company has already lied during the (now-stalled) permitting process by falsely claiming to already own the land.
Stamper says his company doesn’t absolutely need that piece of parkland, even though a massive approach ramp has already been built to access the currently nonexistent new span. Getting around the Riverside Park problem, he says, is doable — for a cost of about $10 million.
But who knows if there’s any truth to that claim.
Like I said, this is a company that will say, and do, anything to get what it wants. And that includes completely sacrificing its credibility.
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