DETROIT – The Morouns are at it again.
For years, they did everything they could, largely by spreading campaign contributions around, to prevent a new bridge from being built across the Detroit River, something nearly everyone else agreed was essential for the economies of Canada and the United States, especially Michigan and Ohio.
They finally failed, and the internationally owned Gordie Howe International Bridge is now rising over the Detroit River about a mile south of the Morouns’ almost century-old Ambassador Bridge.
Now, the Morouns want to buy a piece of Detroit’s Riverside Park, so they can build a new bridge next to their old one, and those who live nearby aren’t happy.
“We don’t trust them to keep their word,” said Deb Sumner, a former teacher and longtime community activist who has lived in the Hubbard Woods area near the Ambassador Bridge for decades.
“They want to give the city $2 million to fix up the rest of Riverside, but that’s not enough to make it a world-class park, and there has been no discussion at all of community benefits,” she said.
That was echoed by Gregg Ward, the owner of the nearby Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry, which transports vehicles carrying hazardous materials across the river to and from Canada.
“If they do build a new bridge, it will increase air pollution, with a lot of particulate matter in the air, not to mention noise pollution and the exhaust of all those trucks idling,” he said.
“This is a golden opportunity to have some leverage over the Morouns,” he added. Ward, who for years has been on a crusade to get the city and the media to recognize what the family has been doing, noted that the city has issued at least 400 unpaid blight tickets to eyesore and/or dangerous Moroun properties.
Six years ago, as part of another deal to acquire some city-owned land, the Morouns agreed to pay off $156,887 in blight and code violations tickets they had accumulated.
But observers say their various businesses, primarily the Detroit International Bridge Co, have racked up many more since, and have done little or nothing to bring their properties up to code. Sumner, who doesn’t much trust Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan either, bristles with indignation because the Morouns don’t seem to be held to the same standards as everyone else.
“With the Gordie Howe bridge (which will be jointly owned by Michigan and Canada) they had to sign a legally binding community benefits agreement before (Detroit) transferred any city-owned land that was needed for the bridge,” she said.
That benefits package came to $48 million. So why, she wants to know, doesn’t the city require the same of the Morouns?
“This is the best opportunity we’ve ever had to make them accountable. We’re crazy if we don’t seize it,” she said.
Her lack of trust in the Morouns isn’t unfounded. Back in 2008, Then-Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun had his employees illegally seize a portion of Detroit’s 29-acre Riverside Park, a rare green jewel on the city’s riverfront.
He put up fences, posted phony “Homeland Security – -No Trespassing” signs and hired security guards with guns to drive people out. Eventually, after a reporter wrote about this, the courts ordered him to stop that behavior and remove his signs and fences.
Matty Moroun, who was worth an estimated $1.5 billion, died last year, but his son, Matthew Moroun, and the patriarch’s widow, Nora Moroun, haven’t given up on building a new bridge.
Canada has given them conditional approval, but only if they agree to tear the old bridge down when the new one is done, and comply with a long list of other requirements, including paying to move a church and a road in Windsor.
It is, in fact, highly questionable whether all the governments on both sides of the border will ultimately allow the Morouns to build a new bridge – or if it would make any sense, after the modern and much better positioned Gordie Howe bridge opens in 2024.
What is clear, however, is that an attempt is being made to ram the Riverside Park deal through Detroit City Council — fast. Today (Thurs Oct 21) the council’s planning and development committee is expected to vote on the Riverside deal.
Unless they unanimously oppose it, it then is scheduled to go before the full council five days later.
That is, what remains of the council; two of the nine members have had to resign due to conviction on corruption charges, and two more have had their offices raided by the FBI.
There may never have been a family quite like the Morouns, who also have a large trucking empire and virtual control of the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority, thanks to a deal with disgraced former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Perhaps not surprising, the Port Authority is being sued for an unpaid $1.1 million water bill, though the Morouns, who own the Ambassador Port Co, say a company they lease the cargo area to, the Nicholson Terminal and Dock Co. is responsible for that.
Moroun critics have other concerns, from worries about the company expanding its customs plaza to its track record of sometimes illegally closing downtown streets.
They insist the family should be held accountable before they are ever allowed to build a new bridge.
But maybe what we should be asking is why a private company, especially one with such a past, should be allowed to own an important international border crossing at all.
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