Found in contempt, Matty strikes back

Just when you think the owners of the Ambassador Bridge couldn't possibly sink any deeper, wallowing as they do in the nether regions of that pit of slime known as the Detroit International Bridge Company, they outdo themselves by delivering a blow that's not only dirty but dumb.

We're talking about the statement issued by Matthew Moroun following a ruling last week by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Prentis Edwards that the bridge company is in contempt for failing to abide by the court's previous order to complete its share of the Gateway Project.

That project is a $230 million effort to improve freeway access to the privately owned Ambassador Bridge and remove truck traffic from surface streets in the southwest Detroit neighborhood where the company has built a sprawling truck plaza featuring fueling stations and a duty-free shop.

The project was supposed to have been completed by April 2008, with the Michigan Department of Transportation undertaking a major reconfiguration of Interstates 75 and 96 in the area around the bridge. The bridge company, for its part, signed a contract committing it to do specified work on property it owned. 

The problem, claimed the state in a lawsuit filed way back in June 2009, is the bridge company unilaterally made changes to the plan. Among other things, it built an approach ramp to a new bridge the company wants to build next to its existing span. That second bridge has yet to be approved by either the U.S. Coast Guard, which must issue a permit before construction can proceed, or the Canadian government.

In February 2010, Edwards ruled that the company had to abide by the terms of the contract it signed with the state and build and construct the project according to the plans that had been agreed to. In January, after the company twice failed to get the case heard before a federal judge, Edwards found the company in civil contempt and sent company President Dan Stamper to jail for a few hours.

After the company again failed to complete the project as designed — a task that includes tearing down what News Hits likes to call the "ramp to nowhere" — lawyers for MDOT again brought the matter before Edwards. 

News Hits has been present for much of the legal wrangling that's been going on in this case over the past few years, and as far as we can tell, Edwards has spent an enormous amount of time letting attorneys for the bridge company make their case, making the same losing arguments over and over and over. 

Frankly, the only thing we're surprised at is how long the judge has let things drag on. Maybe he has been taking pains to make sure that, should the company attempt to appeal to a higher court, his rulings are bulletproof. 

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