Did The Press Conference Undermine DRIC

The more I think about it, the more that the Eddie Francis/L. Brooks Patterson press conference makes no sense whatsoever. Actually, it was a disaster for the Governments involved and makes life so much easier for the private enterprise proponents to attack the DRIC process.

Life will soon be much better for environmental lawyers!

More importantly, as only Senator Cropsey and the Michigan Legislators can uncover during their hearings, the press conference may result in the entire DRIC process of being thrown out so that it has to start all over again at a cost of another $30 or $40 million for each side of the river. Depending on the facts, MDOT may be ultimately responsible. I will talk about that later.

Some genius obviously thought that having the County Executive from an area not directly impacted by the new bridge and the irrelevant Mayor of Windsor telling the decision makers what to do would put a positive spin on the need to build a DRIC bridge. Politically, making that statement in the City of Detroit without the Wayne County Executive and the Detroit Mayor there was absolute sheer brilliance that should cost somebody their job.

If that was the object of the exercise, it failed.

Rather than pressuring the Republicans, as even L. Brooks thought it might do, I believe that it has strengthened their resolve to oppose DRIC. All you need to do is take a look at the comments made by the Republican House leader that I posted previously to see how angry he was. I hardly think that Senator Cropsey will be intimidated by a press conference that was designed to pressure him into submission!

And yes, L. Brooks is and will be in trouble with his Republican friends. He will not be in trouble with them because he is doing the right thing as he claims but because he was used and had no real idea what was talking about as is perfectly clear in the press conference. It seems pretty clear that his involvement was nothing more than an opportunity for some to say that not all Republicans are opposed to the DRIC and to make some of his Republican friends think twice. His presence there was designed to embarrass the Michigan Republican Party.

Didn’t you like his SOB comment about our Mayor. Do you really think that he knew about the threats made by Eddie to start lawsuits? It seems as well that he had no idea about the destruction in Delray of hundreds of homes and businesses so that he had to call on Joe Corradino, the US DRIC consultant, to answer a question that was asked.

One has to ask the question, as disagreeable as it may seem given the turmoil in Detroit over the last few months, what motivated the County Executive to make his comments at this time, right before the Senate hearings that are being organized by his fellow Republicans. Like it or not, that is another question for the Senators to ask and to expect an answer.

I just cannot imagine anyone who is involved in Michigan politics being so dumb. Imagine a statement being made in Detroit about a project in Detroit without having the Detroit Mayor and the Wayne County Executive in attendance. All this will do is enrage Detroit Council with allegations that the suburbs are sticking their nose into their business. More opposition for DRIC.

I must admit I would be incensed if I was a Detroit Councillor and heard L. Brooks having to call on Joe to answer a question about the impact on Southwest Detroit. Here is L. Brooks making all kinds of statements about the new crossing without understanding the number of homes and businesses that would have to be destroyed and the families uprooted in Detroit. It is an insult to say the least especially when L. Brooks ought to know what the Detroit Mayor has written on the crossing but clearly does not.

I really would like to know what our Mayor had to say about traffic and the Ambassador Bridge. L. Brooks did not seem to have a good understanding of where traffic went after it left the bridge. He thought it went right into the downtown.

For some reason, he was under the impression that the Enhancement Project bridge would never be built. For that reason, the DRIC bridge was his second choice as the only viable alternative. I wonder how he got that idea. Who told him that Ontario and the City were opposed to the Enhancement Project?

The City's role in this matter is minimal because of the Federal role under our Constitution respecting international crossings. I assumed that the amnesia disease meant that the Mayor did not talk to about the International Bridges and Tunnels Act. I wonder if the Mayor talked to him about his appearance at the Senate Hearings in Ottawa where his position with respect to the City’s role was rejected. I guess it was too embarrassing for him to do so.

One cannot therefore get too angry at L. Brooks if he was given incorrect or misleading information. Nevertheless, he is no political rookie. He admitted that he received a number of telephone calls right after the press release was distributed about him attending at the Press conference. He should have done his homework before he agreed to attend and definitely should have taken a much more thorough look at the matter after he received all of those calls. He knows that a politician should not open his mouth on something without knowing the facts! If he does not do proper due diligence, he deserves to suffer the consequences.

Windsor Councillors ought to be very concerned as well since my understanding is that very few of them may have known about the Mayor going to Detroit in the first place. There are again consequences for the Mayor talking in Detroit about the border crossing as I am certain that he will find out in good time.

Remember that the Councillors have said that the Mayor is the Voice of Council. The Mayor said on John Fairley’s show that no Councillor really should be saying anything significant on the border crossing issue other than to tell the questioner to seek out the Mayor for a response. In other words, the Councillors told the world and by Resolution on at least two occasions I believe that the Mayor is the official spokesperson for them and that whatever he says they accept even if they do not have the faintest idea what he’s doing.

To be blunt about it, I would like to know what the Mayor would have to say in advance before he calls a press conference, especially in the United States. I would not want him to be able to say whatever it is that he wants to whomever he wishes to talk to without giving him a specific instructions if there is a chance of my liability if the Mayor says something improperly.

Let’s come back to what I suggested at the beginning… that the DRIC study in the United States is in big jeopardy. That could happen once one can figure out what this press conference was really all about. The key person in all of this is Joe Corradino whose company is the US consultant for US DRIC.

I expect that Joe may have had some influence over the County Executive attending. After all, Joe has been involved in a number of big projects in Oakland County. Here are a couple of them:

More importantly, the name of ex-Governor and former US Ambassador to Canada, Jim Blanchard was thrown around in L. Brooks’ speech. I believe that Jim and Joe have some kind of relationship with respect to the DRIC project. Given the close relationship that Jim and L. Brooks have, it would not surprise me at all if Jim was involved to help out his buddy Joe. Again, this is something for Senator Cropsey to take a look at.

Was it Joe who convinced Eddie to come over as well? Someone had to do it. My information is that many at the Senior Governments level in both countries are denying having any involvement in the Press Conference at all. With Eddie’s busy schedule with respect to the Tunnel deal ( he snubbed John Tory), was there some goodies held out to him to convince him to spend a couple of hours in Detroit. I wonder what they were… something in relation to Greenlink or the Tunnel or something else. Perhaps some enterprising Windsor reporter could ask Eddie some of these questions.

While it was confusing, there is no doubt that Corradino was the guy who was deeply involved:

• “Patterson’s spokesman Robert Dustman said Joe Corradino of the Corradino Group handled the invites. The Corradino Group is a consulting firm working with MDOT on the project.
  
  Corradino said Dustman was responsible for the guest list.
  
  “I didn’t handle any of that,” Corradino said.
  
  Francis, Windsor’s mayor, also said Corradino put the list together.”

I can think of two alternatives:

1) if Joe was acting on a frolic of his own, then he is no longer a consultant but an advocate for a position. If he was the one who dreamt up the idea of the Press Conference, arranged to have both Patterson and Eddie in attendance, set it up and was responsible for deciding who came and who did not come, then how can he be "objective" in his analysis of the crossing and of the various proposals.

It would seem to me pretty clear that there is a bias or a reasonable apprehension of bias about the key US DRIC consultant such that any proponent would have a reasonable argument to make that these study should be thrown out and started over again.

There is no other way that I can see that the process can be made fair if I am correct other than eliminating all of Joe’s company’s involvement. It means that another 30 or $40 million and several years of time would have to be spent as well.

2) it is completely absurd to think that Joe did this on his own. My guess is that he received permission from MDOT to do this and they did not want to know what he did or how we went about doing it so they would have a plausible deniability position.

It should be relatively easy to find out what Corradino's role is. If he did it all on his own then he should not be charging the State for any of it because he did this outside of the scope of his function. It might be interesting to take a look at his consulting bill for this time period to see the charges to MDOT.

Assuming that MDOT was involved, whether directly or indirectly, then they may have violated NEPA or any other rules since they have obviously taken a position with respect to the crossing before the FEIS has been completed. How can they do that especially when their DEIS was given a failing grade specifically because they did not have a final location identified.

This is an absolute mess right now. This press conference has made things so bad for the Governments it is almost laughable.

As I said in one of my BLOGS previously, the Bridge Company need not do anything. Their foes are self-destructing on their own right in front of their face.