By Joel Thurtell
So hizzoner isn’t going to SELL Detroit’s Riverside Park to Matty.
Maybe Matty doesn’t need to BUY the park to become its owner.
If I recall correctly, Matty didn’t BUY the Michigan Central building. He acquired it as part of a debt payoff.
You don’t have to PURCHASE a thing to become its owner.
There is such a thing as BARTER.
I was thinking about horsetrading for several hours on Friday, March 19, 2010, while I thoroughly believed that Mayor Bing was working on a sale of Riverside Park to Manuel “Matty” Moroun, who needs the land to complete the new bridge he wants to build beside his Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor.
I believed there was a deal afoot because I asked, yes or no, whether it was happening and Karen Dumas, a mayoral spokeswoman, e-mailed me a note saying. “Joel, There are discussions to sell Riverside Park to Mr. Mororun” (sic).
Later, she e-mailed a correction saying she made a typographical error and meant to say that “there are no discussions” regarding a sale of the park.
But shortly after I got the first missive setting off alarms that the park could be sold, I sent this e-mail to Dumas:
Karen — A few more questions:
1. How long have discussions been going on?
2. Would this be an outright purchase, land swap, or some combination of the two? Some other structure?
3. Price?
4. What about restrictions due to grant of the original land and federal and state grants?
5. How soon could a sale be final?
6. Is the park land sale being offered to other potential customers, say in a request-for-proposal? Is it possible the state or some other government or entity, such as Huron-Clinton Metroparks, might want a crack at it?
Thanks.
Joel Thurtell
If the park isn’t in play, then these questions are unnecessary. But if any kind of land swap is being discussed — not a sale, exactly, but a sort of horsetrade — then my questions would be appropriate, after all.
Right now, I don’t know what to think, but I want my questions to be part of the record.
Just in case.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
If Matty Moroun had a coat of arms, it would have a yo-yo, a scorpion, and a pitchfork on it. And the motto would be “quid pro quo.”
We should keep in mind that Mr. Moroun spreads his money around lavishly when it comes to buying up politicians and officials — but not when it comes to keeping up his derelict buildings, his bridge deck, or the neighborhoods he has tainted.
Didn’t Moroun donate money for Mayor Bing’s inaugural celebration? Don’t tell me it was out of the goodness of his heart.
As a former longtime legal secretary, I recognize the “claim it’s a typo” ploy. The omission of “not” may well be valid, but it looks suspiciously as if the writer first told the truth and then was ordered by a supervisor to “fix that” — and so the statement was “fixed” by the duct-tape claim that it was a typographical error.
BTW, the pitchfork is used to spread straw mixed with manure around; the yo-yo goes up and down and back and forth — but keeps on rolling and turning elusively, and legend has it that the scorpion’s tail can sting you even after its death.
Mayor Bing may think he can strike a deal with Moroun in connection with Riverside Park — but he had best beware: Matty will use Bing’s naivete to get what Matty wants — at all costs. And it is Detroit that will be the loser.
Pres. Reagan said “Trust but verify”; I wouldn’t trust Mr. Moroun as far as I could throw a bull.