Playing ball with Matty

By Joel Thurtell

Matty doesn’t get it.

Batter up! Softball game at ball diamond in Detroit’s Riverside Park Extension, part of which has been seized by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun. Joel Thurtell photo.

Why are people suddenly so upset that he’s taken over parts of a Detroit city-owned park beside the Ambassador Bridge?

Why, it’s been seven years since 9/11, when he seized the east side of the park extension near 23rd Street, a block south of Fort.

Nobody cared then. Seven years!

And it’s been nearly that long since the park’s boat launch was shut down — by the city Recreation Department, he says, not by him.

Now, I have to admit, I didn’t actually have a face-to-face with Matty. My conversation was with Dan Stamper, president of the Detroit International Bridge Co. which runs the bridge owned by Matty Moroun. I suspect what Dan Stamper tells me pretty much mirrors what his boss wants me to hear.

“For seven years, nobody gave a shit,” Dan Stamper said. “For seven years, nobody comes down here.”

Actually, it’s not true that nobody cared. Plenty of people were upset, but powerless to stop Matty.

I talked to Dan Stamper through a chain-link fence at the Riverside Park Extension, near the area Matty took over as a security buffer zone after the Twin Towers were destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Construction materials stored on Riverside Park Extension, a formerly public area owned by City of Detroit. Joel Thurtell photo.

Once up on a time, there were basketball courts, shade trees and a lawn where now Matty is storing concrete tubes, gravel and construction equipment.

The occasion was a softball game underway at a ball field on the park. The game was organized by people who want the city to take back its park.

The “somebody” who came down there and suddenly changed the picture for Matte was me. The rage at Matty erupted last week, after I posted a column describing how one of Matty’s security guards ejected me from the park. He saw me taking photos with my little shirt-pocket Canon, a big no-no for the federal Homeland Security folks, so the guard and Matty-via-Stamper claim. But I’ve heard from other people who were hassled by bridge security for simply being in the park, no camera in hand.

Problem for this rationale is that if you talk to federal Department of Homeland Security people, they tell you they haven’t given Matty authority to take over the park, eject people or ban photography beside the bridge. Their concern is what’s ON the bridge, not what’s UNDER it, according to Ron Smith, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Meanwhile, city officials told me the park belongs to the public and some within the administration are pushing for Mayor Ken Cockrel to sue Matty to get the park back. Judging from the fact that city folks told me two days ago they can no longer talk to me, which makes me think maybe something is going to happen.

At last.

A few minutes before I talked to Dan Stamper, I watched Deb Sumner detach one of Matty’s fake

Deb Sumner holds Matty Moroun’s phony “HOMELAND SECURITY” sign moments after she removed it from the gate of the city of Detroit boat launch in Riverside Park on October 1, 2008. Joel Thurtell photo.

“HOMELAND SECURITY” signs from the locked gate to the city’s boat ramp, the one city officials told me Matty shut down a few months after 9/11.

Deb Sumner is a community activist in Southwest Detroit. She told me she has great faith in Mayor Cockrel, who’s always been responsive when she’s called him for help or advice about neihgborhood matters.

What’s changed for Matty is one huge thing: Kwame Kilpatrick is no longer mayor. According to Deb Sumner, Kwame was a big barrier to stopping Matty Moroun from pushing his development projects which she contends often worked to the detriment of Southwest Detroit.

I’ve heard the same thing from insiders at the City-County Building — Kwame and Matty were buddies, so the former hizzoner and soon to be jailbird put the brakes on confronting Matty over Riverside Park.

But Matty-through-Dan Stamper told me, “I had nothing to do with closing the boat launch.”

Nothing?

My city sources told me Matty ordered the city to close the boat launch a few months after 9/11, citing bridge security concerns.

But according to Dan Stamper’s companion, bridge security director Jack Teatsorth, the city closed the ramp in 2001 after 9/11 and declined to re-open it in spring 2002, citing lack of funds.

Nothing to do with Matty.

Hmmm. Bit of a contradiction here. I need to put this question to city officials. I’m trying to file a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the park.

Meantime, I wondered, whose sign is on the gate leading to the boat ramp? It looks identical to the fake Homeland Security signs festooned on the chain link fence Matty placed on what used to be a public park a couple hundred yards north of the boat ramp.

“We put that sign up,” Teatsorth said. After the city closed the ramp for lack of money, he said, Matty’s people offered to put up one of their custom-made “DUE TO HOMELAND SECURITY NO TRESPASSING” signs to absolve the city of liability in case some unauthorized person went in and later sued. “The sign would be great for them.”

Okay, I said. Whose padlocks are on the gates?

“We put the padlocks on the gates,” Teatsorth said. Bridge workers need to get into the launch area to have access to a bridge tower.

Uh-huh. But the fence and gate belong to the city, right?

Well, not exactly, Teatsorth said. “In oh-two, someone hit the fence. The city didn’t have funding to take care of it. We fixed it. If that’s not trying to do something good,…”

To sum up, then, the city closed the boat launch — according to Matty.

But the “HOMELAND SECURITY NO TRESPASSING” sign is Matty’s.

That’s Matty’s padlock, but the Ambassador Bridge owner denies closing Detroit’s Riverside Park boat launch,. NO TRESPASSING sign, padlocks and gate belong to him. Joel Thurtell photo.

The padlocks are Matty’s

The gate is Matty’s

Okay, I think I get the picture.

What would happen if I tried to drive my boat into that launch, maybe tie it up to a city dock?

Ask Wade Streeter.

He’s a licensed tugboat captain who was piloting his 16-foot boat in the Detroit River one day last month and when he approached the city’s boat launch, guards on the Ambassador Bridge reported him to the Border Patrol.

Remember, the boat launch is, according to the city, public property. And the Detroit River is a public waterway.

Just to recap: The city closed the launch. But Matty put up the NO TRESPASSING sign. Matty installed two padlocks. Matty replaced the gate. And anyone who tries to enter the launch from the Detroit River will face questioning by Border Patrol officers called to the scene by Matty’s hirelings.

Who controls the boat launch, the city or Matty?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com