Why No One Listens To Windsor

Councillor Valentinis and Trustee Cooper want to know why Windsor is ignored. The answer is easy. Read the news story below, 2005's Top Story in the Downriver area. Read how politicians reacted on the other side and what happened when citizens partnered with them.

It used to be like that here too, with the PREVIOUS Windsor Council. Council and citizens working together. We got everyone listening to Windsor.

Then we had the municipal election that should have meant complete victory with a long-term solution for Windsor. Instead we had presented a Schwartz Report with a billion-dollar short-term dream that turned out to be a mere "starting point," endorsement in secret, no opportunity for the public to speak, the "snub" and now what on our side: CODA, CODA , CODA!

READ THE NEWS HERALD STORY AND WEEP FOR WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN FOR US!

2005 Top Story: 'Not on, over or under'

Leaders and residents joined in opposition

By Bobby Ampezzan, The News-Herald, PUBLISHED: January 1, 2006

Mayor Tim Durand of Riverview called it his "lost summer."

Beginning in April, the Downriver area — especially Grosse Ile, Trenton, Wyandotte and Riverview — was faced with the prospect of its very own Ambassador Bridge at the base of the Southfield Freeway, Pennsylvania or King roads or West Jefferson.

The issue was introduced at the first public meeting of the Detroit River International Crossing Project, a partnership of transportation agencies in the United States and Canada surveying the area for a fourth Detroit-area border crossing.

The three current crossings are the Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and the Jobs Tunnel, which is used for commercial rail traffic.

In October, Gov. Jennifer Granholm ended the specter of a crossing Downriver.

Wyandotte and Riverview, especially, were early outspoken opponents.

About 500 Downriver residents met at Wyandotte's Biddle Hall on April 11.

Many present echoed the disgust of Wyandotte resident Richard Miller when he said: "We have (River Rouge Mayor Gregory) Joseph and (Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel) Moroun who want it. Why is (the partnership) down here in our area when we told you no?"

Joseph later said Zug Island, just north of the city, was contaminated and would be a good location, but that he was not in favor of a landing on the shores of River Rouge.

Interest and activism around the issue rose in the succeeding months, with community leaders Durand, Mark Drysdale of Riverview, Corki Benson of Wyandotte, Cindy Dingell of Trenton, Henri LaFrance of Brownstown Township and Kurt Kobiljak of Grosse Ile, among others, attending local advisory council meetings set up for the express purpose of receiving community input on the project.

State Reps. Kathleen Law (D-Gibraltar) and Steve Tobocman (D-Detroit) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives in early June that would ensure public ownership of any new crossings and increase public oversight of existing crossings. That legislation has not come to a vote in the state House.

When the partnership announced another possible crossing location in June at King Road, a number of Grosse Ile residents — such as Tom Burkhart, who began a "stop the southern corridor" petition — became involved in the opposition.

At the second round of public meetings, nearly 1,200 people turned out at Crystal Gardens in Southgate, prompting Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano to say, "All of us are in concert in opposition" to a bridge Downriver.

Ficano, like many city and county leaders, threw his support at the Jobs Tunnel, which would convert the existing rail tunnel for commercial truck traffic.

Six weeks later, Downriver residents again turned out en masse at a Senate Transportation Committee hearing on the issue in Grosse Ile. There, MDOT Director Gloria Jeff enumerated the obstacles to a Downriver bridge that all but precluded further consideration.

After the meeting, state Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton Twp.) vowed to fight to have all state funding for the study examined and possibly cut.

Sen. Raymond Basham (D-Taylor) said he suspected the Downriver alternatives already had been dismissed.

In October, weeks before the planned DRIC Project announcement, Granholm eliminated the Downriver alternatives.

The announcement came on the heels of a meeting that Durand, Trenton Mayor Gerald Brown and City Manager Bob Cady had with Jeff. At that meeting, Brown pleaded with Jeff to consider the real estate losses to the communities laboring under the shadow of the bridge.

Trenton currently is negotiating sale of its riverfront property to developers that could lead to a multi-million dollar project.

Aside from the bridge itself, a number of municipalities reported stagnant property sales as a consequence of the bridge study.

"We didn't realistically think a bridge could be built down here," Durand said recently. "Our concern is we would be a finalist and this would go on for two more years and we (would lose) investments."

Kobiljak said it reaffirmed his belief that government will respond to its citizens.

The reason the bridge idea won't happen Downriver is that "they knew there was no way we were going to let it happen," he said.

Currently, southwest Detroit is the lone remaining alternative for the next border crossing, a future Tobocman and his constituents are equally opposed to.