LANSING – With most of the testimony it heard Wednesday favoring building a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the Strategic Fund Board approved the agreement that would allow preparation for the bridge to begin.
Under the agreement, the Strategic Fund’s primary role would be helping to acquire the property needed to land the bridge on the Michigan side and build customs and other facilities to support the bridge.
That acquisition, and all construction on the Michigan side of the bridge, would be done using Canadian funds, an attorney for the board said.
That idea of no obligation on the part of Michigan became almost a mantra for supporters talking to the board.
“The agreement on its face and throughout its terms does not obligate Michigan to pay any of the costs,” said Bill Danhof with Miller Canfield, a special assistant attorney general working on the agreement.
Half of the bridge and the land on the Michigan side would be owned by the state, but the state would not receive any funds from the tolls until the construction debt is paid off, Danhof said.
The bridge and the lands would be overseen by a six-member board, half appointed by Michigan and half by Canada. “Equal voice, equal ownership, but all the funds are coming from Canada,” Danhof said.
And he confirmed to the board that the project was within its authority to undertake.
Lt. Governor Brian Calley and a group of largely Republican legislators led off the efforts to convince the board to approve the agreement.
“It really provides an unprecedented economic opportunity,” Calley said of the bridge.
Calley and Roy Norton, the Canadian counsel to Detroit, both asserted there was room for another crossing.
“We’re certain of the belief that both will be profitable,” Norton said. “The Ambassador Bridge will be less profitable.”
Calley noted that the Ambassador Bridge had the highest per-axel tolls for commercial trucks of any of the current crossings.
Rep. Al Pscholka (R-Stevensville) questioned the opposition to the bridge.
“If we had a $500 million investment coming into Michigan, we’d tear our rotator cuffs slapping ourselves on the back,” he said.
Rep. John Walsh (R-Livonia) sent a letter urging the board to move ahead on the bridge.
“The bridge is absolutely critical to continuing Michigan’s relationship with our country’s largest trading partner, Canada,” Walsh said in his letter. “More specifically, Michigan’s role in that relationship will be jeopardized if we fail to complete a new span in the very near future.”
He said he was comfortable that the agreement protected taxpayers from being liable for any of the costs of the bridge, but would see the economic benefits.
Walsh also said that alternatives to the proposal are not viable. “While mindful of the existing bridge and the desire of its owner to build a second span, I have spent a considerable amount of time confirming a simple reality — Canadian government officials at the local, provincial and national level have made it absolutely clear that a span immediately adjacent to the Ambassador Bridge will not be allowed,” he said.
Norton noted that the Detroit International Bridge Company, which owns the Ambassador Bridge, had just filed new environmental permit applications, further delaying any start to its second span. But he also said the permits were not likely to be approved because Windsor does not want to add truck traffic to the streets where the bridge lands.
The primary opposition to the bridge at Wednesday’s meeting was from Americans for Prosperity, which argued the project would end up obligating taxpayers and so was not appropriate.
The group asked the board to table the issue at least until staff can do the full evaluation the statute allows of all projects in which the Strategic Fund is involved.
Scott Hagerstrom, director of Americans for Prosperity-Michigan, questioned how much in state funds were spent preparing the agreement, given the governor’s assertions that no tax dollars were needed in building the bridge.
“What kind of staff time and state attorney time was used in building the agreement?” he said during a press conference before the meeting.
And he said AFP sees any Strategic Fund money, even that collected from tobacco settlement or tribal casino payments, as taxpayer dollars.
Danhof said no Strategic Fund money would be involved, general fund or otherwise.
If there really will be no state money invested in the bridge, then the governor should support legislative action to place a constitutional ban on spending on the bridge on the November ballot, Hagerstrom said.
He declined to take a position on such a proposal being circulated essentially by the Detroit International Bridge Company until it makes the ballot, but Hagerstrom said the Ambassador was an example of how the new bridge should be built.
“If you go to the U.S Congress and get a franchise like they did in the 1920s,” then the group would support it, he said.
With the Canadian government footing the bill for the project, including land purchases on the Michigan side, Hagerstrom said the agreement essentially makes the Strategic Fund an agent of a foreign government.
“It will allow the Canadian government to assert the Strategic Fund as a government agency to assert eminent domain rights,” he said.
Danhof said the project would require a presidential permit, and that the application for that permit had already been filed with the U.S. Department of State.
Residents of the Delray neighborhood where the new bridge would land on the Detroit side said they were not so much opposed as they were concerned that they would be treated fairly.
“There’s no clear guarantee that the impacts will be addressed,” said Scott Brines, a resident of the community. “We know this is the most important project in North America and we need to take care of people who will host this project.”
Julie Epsch with Del Ray Mechanical, a business in the neighborhood, said communication had been “sketchy” since the last public meeting. “This project will disrupt our ongoing business,” she said, but residents and business owners were not being kept abreast of developments.
Board member Bill Martin said the board would address those concerns. “We want them to know that we will be moving forward very cautiously and looking out for their interests,” he said to residents.
The issue did draw a larger than usual crowd to the board meeting, and more public comment, but the meeting remained constrained despite the potential emotion the project has generated.
The board prepared for some conflict over the issue, with officials discussing before the meeting the process for asking people to leave and, if needed, to bring in the police. But no conflict arose.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
a>>
