By Joel Thurtell
I caught Ambassador bridge president Dan Stamper’s weird performance Friday, September 25, 2009 on WXYZ-TV-Channel 7.
I have some advice for Dan:
Prepare for these media interviews: Read joelontheroad.com.
Channel 7 reporter Heather Catallo noted that bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun has fenced off part of a public Detroit park, supposedly to improve “security” at the bridge.
If that’s so, wondered Catallo, why not fence off the bridge on the Canadian side?
Stamper claimed he didn’t know about the lack of fencing on the Windsor, Ontario side of the bridge.
“No, well, yes, you’re bringing it to my attention and we’ll deal with that,” Stamper said.
Gosh, could Moroun’s top guy at the bridge be blind? How could someone who works with that bridge every day not know there’s no fencing on the east side of the river?
Yet if Dan had been reading this blog, he wouldn’t — supposedly — have been caught flat-footed by Channel 7.
I wrote about the lack of fencing on the Windsor side of the Ambassador Bridge back on December 9, 2008.
Of course, Dan Stamper is not blind, nor is he stupid. He’s aware of the absurdity of his boss’s claim that security is a risk on the Detroit side, but no problem over there in Windsor. Why if security really WERE a concern, he’d stop storing volatile diesel fuel and gasoline under the west side of the bridge.
As for his promise to “deal with that,” I’m guessing he won’t get anywhere with his “security” scam in Windsor. I suspect the Canadians would take a dim view of billionaires fencing off public property.
Much easier for billionaire trucking magnates to get away with that kind of ridiculous misbehavior in the good ol’ U S of A.
Fact is, security and anti-terrorism are the last refuge of a scoundrel. What’s really at stake is the fact that without control of Detroit’s public Riverside Park, Matty can’t build his second bridge.
Stamper pretended that it’s not a fact, but it is.
Matty’s squatting on the park, hoping that enough of his adverse possession will wear down Detroit elected officials and, with time on his side, force them to give him what he wants.
Will it work?
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
