gateway project

Virtually without exception reporters, columnists and editorial writers in Detroit are big fans of Jailin Judge Prentis Edwards and insist he did the right thing to send Manuel 'Matty' Moroun  and Dan Stamper of the Ambassador Bridge company to the Wayne County lockup last Thursday. For the local press it's a simple morality play in which the state and the law are the white knights of virtue and the capitalist bridge tollers are the dark villains.

Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is asking for a court order transferring control of the Ambassador Bridge approaches and plaza area to a court-appointed receiver.

The Ambassador Bridge company suffered defeat today in a court case brought by Michigan DOT for breach of contract. Judge Prentis Edwards of Wayne County Circuit Court in a 15-page ruling found the Bridge company to be in violation of its contract commitments by failing to build its part of the Gateway Project (upgraded links to I-75 and I-96) as agreed in 2004.

Here is the full text of a press statement issued by Ambassador Bridge in response to MDOT's law suit June 24 seeking a court order against the bridge company to force it to adhere to contractual commitments in the Gateway project and seeking damages for multiple alleged breqaches of contract:

"Ambassador Bridge Lawsuit Fogs Facts