Delray foray

News Hits was surprised to see Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel "Matty" Moroun has some new allies in his effort to keep a publicly funded span from being built downriver: the Rev. Malik Shabazz and his New Black Panther Party.

Shabazz and a handful of his associates showed up at a Delray community center at midday Monday, holding professionally made protest signs and shouting, "We say no!" as a bus taking state legislators and community leaders on a fact-finding tour of the neighborhood where the new bridge would be built pulled in for lunch and a presentation.

We weren't along for the ride earlier in the day, when the bus stopped at Moroun's truck plaza and duty-free shop adjacent to the Ambassador. According to the Detroit News, the reclusive Moroun made an appearance, preaching the virtues of the free enterprise system.

The bus also ventured across the Detroit River and into Windsor, to hear from officials there and see two planned sites: one where the publicly owned New International Trade Crossing (formerly known as the Detroit River International Crossing) would be placed and the other where Moroun wants to locate a privately owned second span adjacent to the Ambassador.

At the Delray community center, it was a different pitch being served up along with a lunch of sub sandwiches and chips. A broad cross-section of residents and business owners showed up to say they want a new bridge to be built in their southwest Detroit neighborhood — but only if it comes with legislative assurance that the project will bring agreed-upon "community benefits."

Outside, Shabazz and his group, with their chorus of "no," did their best to try to drown out interviews with people who actually live and work in the area. The good reverend struck us as the kind of guy who believes that you win an argument not with reason and facts, but by yelling the loudest.

Asked why he opposed the publicly funded bridge, Shabazz launched into a spiel about the strong financial state of Detroit Public Schools before it was first taken over by the state years ago. His point, if you want to call it that, was that Lansing can't be trusted, especially now that Republican Rick Snyder is sitting in the governor's office. Never mind that it was Snyder's predecessor, Democrat Jennifer Granholm, who originally supported a new bridge downriver.

"We're tired of Lansing helping us," explained Shabazz. He also expressed concern that the project — despite a guarantee from the Canadian government that it would foot the bill for the new bridge —would end up siphoning money from America's already depleted public coffers.

At which point News Hits felt as if we'd suddenly been transported to some sort of alternate universe. When Black Panthers start sounding like members of the Tea Party, you know truly strange territory has been entered.

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