Matty: Still squatting on Riverside Park

Posted on May 6, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Not much happened in Wednesday’s (May 6, 2009) Detroit 36th District Court hearing into the city’s attempt to evict billionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun and his Detroit International Bridge Co., aka “Ambassador Bridge,” from publicly-owned Riverside Park.

Oh sure, Matty’s mouthpiece still claims it was the city, not Matty, that closed the Riverside Park boat launch, even though Matty’s security chief has admitted that the bridge company padlocked the boat launch and placed phony “Homeland Security” signs on the gates.

There seems no argument that Matty’s people fenced off the east section of the park extension eight years ago, replacing play fields and basketball courts with heaps of construction materials.

City attorney John Nader argued before Judge Beverly Hayes-Sipes that the park belongs to the city and the city wants it back. He said the city will remove the fence.

Meanwhile, another lawsuit involving Moroun’s attempt to buy the park has made its way into federal court. According to Nader, the city doesn’t want to sell the park and doesn’t have to. But the U.S. Coast Guard has told Moroun that he can’t build a second span for his bridge unless he owns or controls Riverside Park, part of which he needs for footings for his proposed new bridge.

Most of the discussion Wednesday revolved around Moroun’s demand for a “buffer zone” between the public park and his bridge. His attorney, Jeffrey Stewart, argued there is a need for “security” around the bridge. Attorneys for Matty seemed quite concerned when  Nader mentioned tearing down the fence Matty’s henchpersons placed on city property. They talked of “national security” and said they might have to have the court cleared spectators and press if the matter were dicussed in the hearing.

Curiously, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, there is no “buffer zone” and people and traffic move close to the bridge.

The hearing ended in an agreement that the judge would meet with top bridge and city officials sometime in early June to discuss further whether the city should have access to its own park.

There was virtually no discussion about the public boat launch. In the hallway afterward, I mentioned to attorney Nader that I’d like to launch my motorboat from the public ramp at Riverside Park. Soon.

He suggested I talk to him about that later.

All parties agreed that Matty has been using Riverside Park for eight years. The judge wondered why the city waited so long before trying to evict Moroun.

I suspect there is a reason, but nobody seemed willing to mention it in court. It would be the same reason Matty’s stalling this eviction proceeding: He had the felon and former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, in his hip pocket and hopes he can control a new mayor, too.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

He beat Ohio State

Posted on May 4, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

A hospice nurse called a bit after two on Sunday morning, May 3, 2009, to tell my wife that her dad and my good friend, Hank Fonde, had died.

Hank was 85, and had suffered with Alzheimer’s disease for many years. It was a hard, awful, bitter process of mental degeneration, but right now I want to think about the man who befriended me, a guy with a big, scruffy beard who would marry his daughter. His remark, made with a big grin in 1972, when I shaved and got a haircut before flying to West Africa to join Karen in the Peace Corps was, “You clean up real good.”

When Karen introduced us in the den of their house in Ann Arbor back in about 1972, she told Hank I was a student of history. “I like history,” Hank said, and showed me the book he was reading. It was a biography of Fielding Yost, the legendary University of Michigan football coach. Unlike most of us, Hank actually knew Fielding Yost.

For his family, and for the kids lucky enough to have him as coach, Hank was pretty legendary, too. It was not all about football, though his record on the gridiron was pretty impressive. It was about teaching, about character. When he took me fishing around their cottage in Canada, he always explained why he trolled here rather than there: There’s a shoal down there, he’d say. You can’t see it, but point the stern towards that dead tree and the bow toward that point and we’ll go over it and catch a pike. Maybe. 

 

Up in Canada, we did catch a lot of pike and bass, and back on shore, Hank was busy instructing me how to filet a pike without losing too much meat. Oh, did we like to eat pike! From the cleaning board, the eat went to his wife, my mother-in-law, Edith Jensen Fonde, who died two years ago.

Old-time University of Michigan football fans will remember Hank as a key player on the UM squad in the mid and late 1940s. He came from Knoxville to UM through the Navy’s V-12 program during World War II. The government wanted more aeronautical engineers, so Hank studied engineering. He was a Seaman Second Class in the Navy, but at the same time he was a UM student. But the classes that really mattered to Hank were all about football. He showed me his notebook from a class he took from legendary UM football coach Fritz Crisler. He memorized those notes.

It was only partly about plays. Hank’s younger son, Mark Fonde, has a dilapidated sack of pigskin with yellow letters painted on it: “Michigan – 7, Ohio, 3. Ohio State scored their field goal early in the 1945 game, but the winning — and only — touchdown was scored in the fourth quarter. By Hank. I heard Hank, by then deep into the involuntary amnesia of Alzheimer’s, tell an Ohio woman who was heckling him for wearing a maize and blue t-shirt, “I beat Ohio State!” 

He was right.

Mostly, it was about building character. This was a coach who led his team in sprints. This was a coach whose backfield moved so fast and so deftly that spectators had trouble figuring out the plays. Only one thing you needed to know. They made touchdowns.

For many years, Hank had two season tickets to UM games. They were on the 50-yard line in a section populated by retired coaches and their spouses. Once in a while, Hank would take me to a game. I’m not good at following football action, but going to a game with Hank was educational. He was always analyzing. After he retired from UM coaching, he was the color man for UM games covered by an Ann Arbor radio station. He knew how to boil the plays down so even the most ignorant of us could understand.

It was on our way to one of these UM games that Hank told me he regretted leaving high school football for coaching at UM. College football is all about business. High school ball was about character, he said.

Somebody made a movie called “Seven Touchdowns in January” about the 1948 Rose Bowl game UM played against Southern Cal. The score was Michigan 49, USC zip. Hank was a member of that team. On the film, you can see Hank, a halfback, scooting around Southern Cal players and lofting the football for a touchdown.

For 10 years in the 1950s, from 1949-58, Hank coached football at Ann Arbor High School. In his first eight years, his team lost one game. His total win-loss-tied record was 69 wins, six losses and four ties. Four of the losses occurred his last year, when he and his players knew he was leaving to coach at UM.

From 1959-68, he coached at UM under Bump Elliott where the win-loss record was nothing to brag about, though the team won a Jan. 1, 1965 Rose Bowl game against Oregon State, 34-7. Better than the 2008 Wolverines!

Until the last couple of years when Alzheimer’s really took over, Hank could watch a football game and call a play better than the refs. And until very recently, he was still capable of cracking a joke.

Hank was a poet. He loved and in his better days could recite Bobbie Burns and Robert Service. He was so full of old sayings, either from his family or the country around Knoxville, that his kids put together a list of his sayings, called “Daddyisms.”

Hank is survived by five children: Karen Fonde of Plymouth, Charles Fonde of Carmel, Ind., Mark Fonde of Ann Arbor, Julia Davis of Farmington Hills and Anne Potter of Dayton, Ohio, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, one of whom is named for him.

Funeral arrangements are still being made.

Posted in Hank Fonde | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Judge ignores JOTR, but Convertino hears

Posted on April 29, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

I was disappointed when U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland ignored my advice that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the behavior of federal attorneys and maybe even the Detroit Free Press in producing a January 2004 story about criminal charges that had not yet been laid against then assistant U.S. attorney Richard Convertino.

Convertino eventually was tried and acquitted of prosecutorial misbehavior. He’s suing officials in the Department of Justice, but for his lawsuit to go forward, he needs to know the names of Justice officials who leaked confidential information to Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter, who wrote a story using the leaked information and by the way also put in print the name of a confidential federal informant.

For years, Ashenfelter claimed he had a First Amendment right not to reveal his sources. Last August, Judge Cleland ruled that Ashenfelter had no First Amendment protection against testifying. The judge cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says nobody — not even journalists — can hide behind the First Amendment to keep from bearing witness to a crime.

The newspaper’s problem is that for its shield logic to work, it has to turn facts on their head. Normally, a newspaper protects sources who are underdogs — whistleblowers who might lose livelihoods or worse if their names are revealed. But in this case, the person the Free Press trashed with its story was Convertino, who contends his bosses at Justice were retaliating against him because he testified about their workings under subpoena to a Congressional committee.

In other words, the Free Press is protecting the persecutors, the people in power and not the underdog whistleblower.

Once Cleland dumped his First Amendment claim, Ashenfelter took the Fifth Amendment, claiming his testimony might lead to criminal charges against him.

After first denying Ashenfelter’s Fifth Amendment claim, Judge Cleland last week granted it. Ashenfelter didn’t have to testify or go to jail after all, and Convertino’s case looked dead.

But as I pointed out in blog posts beginning on December 8, 2008, Convertino has another option.

According to the Free Press ethics guidelines in force when Ashenfelter wrote his story, no reporter alone has the power to place an anonymously-sourced story in the Free Press. The reporter must have permission from editors up the feeding chain, and they must know the name or names the reporter’s sources.

I was delighted to learn that Convertino’s attorney, Steven Kohn, has taken my advice and filed a motion April 29, 2009 in U.S. District Court in Detroit asking that Free Press editors reveal the names of anonymous Justice sources who, according to the judge, illegally leaked confidential information to Ashenfelter.

Here’s the advice I posted in an April 27, 2009 JOTR column responding to the judge’s refusal to force Ashenfelter to testify:

What happens now?

I imagine Convertino will appeal. If I were in his shoes, I’d broaden my list of journalists who know the names of Ashenfelter’s sources. I’d subpoena everyone whose name was on the Free Press masthead back in January 2004 when the Free Press ran the Convertino story.

I noticed from the Free Press story that the paper’s two heavies — David Hunke and Paul Anger — were in the deposition room lending support to their reporter. In 2005, longtime Free Press owner Knight-Ridder sold the Free Press to Gannett and the top Free Press editors who may well know the names of Ashenfelter’s sources were given the bum’s rush. Hunke and Anger were placed at the pinnacle of the Free Press by Gannett. Do they know the names of the sources? Let’s find out: Subpoena them. too.

Looks like Convertino listened.

Who knows whether the judge will grant his motion.

But at least the Convertino case still has life.

Maybe my other piece of advice will come alive, too — that the judge appoint a special prosecutor to delve into how exactly the newspaper received the tainted information and what role federal prosecutors, reporters, editors and, yes, maybe even newspaper attorneys played in publishing a story based on confidential information that also revealed the identify of a confidential government source who, because of the newspaper report, was forced to flee the country.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in censorship, Joel's J School, Subpoenaed reporters | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spin, spin, spin

Posted on April 27, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

The more you repeat a lie, the more it overwhelms the truth.

They know that maxim well at the Detroit Free Press.

It took four writers, two of them Puliltzer laureates, to put that old rule to use in the April 22 Free Press story about the latest development in Richard Convertino’s effort to obtain information from Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter. Convertino needs Ashenfelter to tell him the names of the federal prosecutors who illegally leaked personnel information about Convertino to the reporter as the lawmen paved the way for indicting their former colleague Convertino on charges of prosecutorial misbehavior.

A federal jury acquitted Convertino, who in the past four years has pursued the names of those employees of the Department of Justice who leaked his private information so he can collect damages from them for tarnishing his name and career.

The barrier to Convertino’s lawsuit was Ashenfelter, who steadfastly claimed a First Amendment right not to reveal the names of his sources. Problem was, leaking information about Convertino was illegal. Leaking the name of a Department of Justice confidential informant too was illegal. And it may have been illegal for the Free Press to print that information.

All of that information is contained in an opinion last August from U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland. A reading of that opinion is all one needs to understand that the following assertions in the latest triple-bylined Free Press story are false no matter how many times the paper repeats them:

First, Ashenfelter’s sources at Justice were not whistleblowers, as the Free Press suggests. They were Justice Department officials. Convertino’s complaint and Judge Cleland’s ruling make this clear. The whistleblower was Convertino, who claims his testimony before Congress so infuriated his bosses at Justice that they set about to ruin him.

Second, Judge Cleland did not rule that the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals alone among appeals courts bans use of the First Amendment as a shield for journalists subpoenaed to testify. No matter how often the Free Press repeats this whopper, it will never be true.

In fact, while he discusses the Sixth Circuit, Judge Cleland concludes that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that nobody, including journalists, can use the First Amendment as a shield against testifying in a criminal matter. A journalist who witnesses crimes is required — as any citizen would be — to testify.

Third, it is not true that Convertino alone raised the potential for criminal action against Ashenfelter. You can’t take the Fifth for no good reason. When Judge Cleland allowed the reporter to take the Fifth, he made it clear that Ashenfelter might justifiably fear that he could be prosecuted. Revealing the name of a confidential informant in a newspaper article alone might be grounds for such a fear, since there are criminal sanctions available to punish such behavior.

Why does the newspaper keep hammering these stretchers? Because in order for Dave Ashenfelter to be a hero to journalists who propose a federal shield law, he must be a poster boy for the First Amendment. Therefore, as far as the Free Press is concerned, the reporter and by implication the newspaper are First Amendment heroes, even though the judge discarded the First Amendment as a shield.

It had to be a bitter pill for the Free Press staff and shield law advocates to swallow: The poster boy for the First Amendment testifying he was afraid he might be prosecuted.

His story revealed not only illegally-leaked personnel information about Convertino, but it also put into print the name of a confidential federal informant who, as a direct result of the Free Press article, was forced to flee from this country.

Shades of Valery Plame!

Yet the Valery Plame comparison has evaded journalists writing about this case.

Frankly, I think Ashenfelter was correct — he might have been prosecuted. He might still be charged. There is a law, called the Espionage Act, that prohibits revealing the kind of information he and the Free Press published.

What happens now?

I imagine Convertino will appeal. If I were in his shoes, I’d broaden my list of journalists who know the names of Ashenfelter’s sources. I’d subpoena everyone whose name was on the Free Press masthead back in January 2004 when the Free Press ran the Convertino story.

I noticed from the Free Press story that the paper’s two heavies — David Hunke and Paul Anger — were in the deposition room lending support to their reporter. In 2005, longtime Free Press owner Knight-Ridder sold the Free Press to Gannett and the top Free Press editors who may well know the names of Ashenfelter’s sources were given the bum’s rush. Hunke and Anger were placed at the pinnacle of the Free Press by Gannett. Do they know the names of the sources? Let’s find out: Subpoena them. too.

What have I learned from the latest twist in Ashenfelter-Convertino?

If you’re a federal prosecutor at or near the top of the feeding chain, you can break the law and get away with it.

If you’re a newspaper reporter, you can shield lawbreakers and not be forced to bear witness.

If your brand of journalism violated federal law in the course of reporting, so be it.

The rest of us mortals, placed in the same position, would have no choice but to give evidence.

This is not a shield we’re talking about. It’s a double standard.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in Joel's J School | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Metro Times: JOTR “best independent blogger”

Posted on April 24, 2009 by hro50ta1

Staff here at joelontheroad were delighted to learn that Metro Times staffers have bestowed kudos on this blog:

BEST EXAMPLE OF AN INDEPENDENT BLOGGER RAISING HELL

Joel Thurtell

Joelontheroad.com

The former daily newspaper guy has kept his hand in the game with his blog joelontheroad. His biggest scoop came last year, when he reported that Matty Moroun’s Ambassador Bridge Co. had occupied part of Detroit’s Riverside Park. As a result of that report, the city looked into the issue, decided that Thurtell’s reporting was on the mark, and took the Bridge Co. to court, where the dispute continues to play out. Joel’s also been pursuing the Rouge River as an environmental story, a subject that he’s also written about in the pages of the MT. Wayne State University Press recently published the excellent Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River with text by Thurtell and photographs by Patricia Beck.

Thank you, Metro Times. You gave us a much-needed lift.

Posted in future of newspapers, Joel's J School | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

JOTR statement to Coast Guard

Posted on April 22, 2009 by hro50ta1

Here is the statement I e-mailed on April 21, 2009 to the U.S. Coast Guard regarding my encounter last fall with an Ambassador Bridge secuity guard:

Joel Thurtell – Public Comment to the USCG

April 21, 2009

Hala Elgaaly, P.E.

Bridge Administrator

United States Coast Guard

Office of Bridge Administration

(CG-5411) 2100 Second Street, SW

Washington DC 20593

Hala.Elgaaly@uscg.mil

Re: Public Testimony – for the USCG NEPA process Statement about threat from Ambassador Bridge security guard

Dear Ms. Elgaaly:

I am a journalist. I have more than thirty years professional experience in radio and newspaper work. I retired in 2007 from the Detroit Free Press after twenty-three years.

I want to report a series of incidents that began on September 22, 2008 with an encounter with an Ambassador Bridge security guard. I believe this incident belongs in the record of the U.S. Coast Guard. This incident occurred at Riverside Park, a City of Detroit public park, part of which has been taken over by the Detroit International Bridge Company for construction of its new Ambassador Bridge.

I posted my account of this encounter on my blog soon after it happened. This story is critical to the proposal by the Detroit International Bridge Company (DIBC) for the Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project (ABEP) and your role in assuring the integrity of the NEPA process. I understand there were references to my story during the March 17th public hearing, which I was not able to attend. Therefore, I am submitting this statement.

While researching and writing books, I also write a blog called www.joelontheroad.com. Thus, as a journalist, on September 22, 2008, I visited the Riverside Park Extension in Southwest Detroit, which abuts the Ambassador Bridge. I was trying to check out a report from a friend that bridge owner Matty Moroun had locked the public boat launch at the city’s Riverside Park.

I was uncertain where the boat launch was, but finding the park extension a block from Fort Street, I parked my car in the public parking lot adjacent to the park softball field and began walking across the park in search of the boat launch. As I proceeded, I shot photos with my digital camera. This incident happened mid-afternoon. I took several photos of the bridge, and I noted a chain-link fence with signs that said:

WARNING

DUE TO

HOMELAND SECURITY

NO TRESPASSING

VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Behind the fence, I saw piles of construction materials. As I proceeded along this fence, taking occasional photographs, a white pickup truck drove across the park lawn towards me. The pickup left deep tracks in the grass. I shot a photo of the driver and truck as it stopped beside me. The driver was a muscular man with shaved head, sunglasses, a goatee, tattoos on both arms and wearing a t-shirt. I could see a shotgun leaning against the back of the passenger seat beside him.

The man said, “You can’t take pictures of the bridge structure from here. Homeland Security. You can only take pictures back where you’re parked.”

I responded, “This is a public park. You can’t stop me from taking pictures in a city park.”

He said, “You can’t take pictures here. Go back to the parking area.”

I snapped his photo.

The man pointed to a decal on the side of his truck. It said, “L.S.S. SECURITY (800) 542-3821.

I snapped a photo of the decal. I asked him to identify himself.

“Doug,” he said.

“Your last name,” I said (an opportunity for him to show his official identification, like a license or badge).

He pointed to the side of the truck.

“You need to get out of here,” he told me.

“No,” I said.

“Okay, you can talk to the Border Patrol,” he said. He picked up a handheld radio and talked to someone, saying, “I’ve got a guy hassling me here with some cameras. I’ll hold him here till you come.”

The man put the radio down and said, “Wait here. The Border Patrol is coming. You can talk to them.”

I’ve been licensed as a ham radio operator for nearly fifty years. I know that the radio spectrum is allocated to various services, be they taxicabs, fire departments, police departments, forest service, FBI, yes, the U.S. Coast Guard, and they all operate on separate F.C.C.-assigned sections of radio bandwidth. The Border Patrol has its frequencies, L.S.S. has its frequencies. They do not communicate with each other.

I concluded that “Doug” was misleading me, and that he had not talked to anyone from the Border Patrol. If I waited, as he ordered me to do, I most likely would be confronted by L.S.S. backups with shaved heads, tattooed arms, t-shirts and shotguns.

I reviewed the facts, with urgency:

This strange man wearing no uniform (other than a t-shirt with L.S.S. Security embroidered on it) and refusing to identify himself except for “Doug”… was armed with a shotgun … appeared to be calling more shotgun-armed people to his aid… What would that mean for me?

Guns talk. They say, “What do you think I’m here for?” What did “Doug” intend to do? Clearly, he was trying to intimidate me into staying to meet not the Border Patrol, but most likely armed private guards from this L.S.S. Security company.

What was L.S.S.? I had no idea.1 But this shoddily clad armed man seemed to have it in for me. If his comment over that radio that I was “hassling” him was a sample of his ability to report objectively, I wouldn’t stand a chance whether the new arrivals were Border Patrol or more of his type. If anyone was being harassed, intimidated and threatened, it was me. That’s what shaved heads, t-shirts, tattoos, shotguns and refusals to identify are for.

“Doug” was scary enough. I pictured myself being “interrogated” by these irregular security guards and decided not to wait and find out what his compadres looked like.

“No,” I told him. “I think I’ll leave.”

“No! You’re staying here!” he countered menacingly.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You’re a private security guard and you don’t have any authority over me. This is city property.”

As I started walking across the grass towards my car, “Doug” backed up his pickup and turned around, making a new set of tracks on the lawn. He parked his pickup directly behind my car. He was cornering me – physically and forcefully trying to obstruct my freedom.

When I got to my car, “Doug” said, “Stay right here. The Border patrol is on the way.”

“You have no authority,” I said. “You’re a private security dick blocking my car on public property.”

I unlocked my car, got in, turned on the engine, headed forward and then made a sharp right turn around “Doug” and his pickup. I headed for the freeway and home. Scared; then relieved.

Soon after I posted my story on my blog, Joel on the Road, I began hearing from folks – many from SOUTHWEST Detroit – who wanted me to know about their stories. I heard from people who, like me, had been harassed by armed guards from the bridge. I learned that bridge guards several times had ordered one of Detroit’s top recreation officials to leave the city’s public Riverside Park. I started doing more research. As the stories and information continued to come to me, I realized there was much more to this incident.

I also received a letter from Dan Stamper, dated September 26, 2008, which I placed on my blog. One of the quotes I found particularly significant:

“The security staff you encountered do indeed work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, (CBP), Border Patrol, FBI and the equivalent agencies in Canada. Had you respected his authority and stuck around long enough, you would have found that out…”2

Later I went to the Detroit Police Department to file a police report. A police officer at the station advised me to take my complaint to Matty Moroun. She refused to let me file a complaint or even merely log the incident.3 I left the police office wondering about the futility and frustration that others must also be struggling with.

1 I later found out. There is no company listing for L.S.S. Security; nor for LSS Security in the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth. There is no security guard license for either and there can’t be a license for a non-entity, unless it is for an individual. Instead, there is a company registered with the State called LSS Consulting Inc. It has two licenses: Professional Investigator Agency – Lic.#3701202772 and Security Guard Agency – Lic.#3801203480

2 Posted on my blog: http://joelontheroad.com/?p=1128

3 I was aware that the Detroit Police Department is under a federal consent decree, for among other things, insuring political influence did not interfere with police duties. And I was aware that the FBI is reportedly investigating the former Mayor, I learned that a licensed tugboat captain who was piloting his 16-foot boat in the Detroit River one day in September 2008 experienced a “security guard” incident as well. He described how, as he approached the city’s boat launch, security guards on the Ambassador Bridge reported him to the Border Patrol.

I contacted the US Department of Homeland Security. According to Ron Smith, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, no one in CBP has given the Ambassador Bridge authority to take over the public Riverside Park, eject people or ban photography beside the bridge. CBP’s concern is what’s ON the bridge, not what’s UNDER it, he told me.

About a week after my incident with “Doug”, on October 1, 2008 a group of residents rallied for a softball game at Riverside Park. It was a community celebration to voice their opposition to the illegal seizure of their public park by the Ambassador Bridge. The media came and television coverage showed a brief clip.

Dan Stamper, president of the Ambassador Bridge, came that day.

He offered to supply the softball players with soft-drinks after reading a blog response calling for a game.

So, at the softball game, Dan Stamper came over to speak with me, Curt Guyette of the MetroTimes and tugboat Captain Wade Streeter with his own experience of being threatened.4

Stamper spoke through a chain-link fence at the Riverside Park Extension, near the area they seized as a supposed “security buffer zone”. We all asked questions of the bridge president. When did the fence go up? Who put it up? Google satellite photos taken in the summer of 2007 show no fence. So what “homeland security threat” prompted the fence to be erected after that? Could it be related to the beginning of construction for the ABEP – that still does not have approvals to begin construction? If a buffer-zone was needed, wouldn’t construction materials provide a risky hiding place for possible explosive devices, for example?5

Dan Stamper responded to various questions, “For seven years, nobody gave a shit.” At one point Stamper deferred to the bridge security director, Jack Teatsorth. He claimed the City of Detroit closed the boat ramp in 2001 after 9/11 and declined to re-open it in spring 2002, citing lack of funds.

“We put that sign up,” Teatsorth said, referring to the WARNING due to Homeland Security sign, to absolve the city of liability in case some unauthorized person went in and later sued. As I questioned him further, he said: Kwame Kilpatrick, who was recently released from jail. On my blog I discussed the Detroit News’ October 20, 2008 article stating that no outsider had more contact with the former mayor than Matty, who gave at least $50,000 in political contributions to Kwame. The two reporters reviewed 1,886 pages of Kilpatrick’s daily schedules from 2003 to 2007. They met 11 times in 2006 and 2007. Perhaps, I mused, they discussed Riverside Park?

4 Curt Guyette is the News Editor of MetroTimes, which ran a story on October 1, 2008, which quoted the CBP response to their inquiry: “News Hits put in calls to a variety of local Homeland Security officials including those at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) regional office at Selfridge Air Force Base and its Detroit office, and also the U.S. Coast Guard’s office in Detroit. All expressed surprise at learning that said fence had been erected and access to the boat launch had been cut off. “To my knowledge, there’s no connection between the fence being put up at that park and the Department of Homeland Security,” says Ronald Smith, spokesman for the CBP’s Detroit office.” See more at the website:

http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13308

5 Explosion risks have been an issue since 300,000 gallons of fuel have been stored underground near the Bridge ramp. Six tanks have been removed, and twelve additional ones approved for installation with the expanded Ammex plaza.

“We put the padlocks on the gates,” explaining that bridge workers need to get into the launch area to have access to a bridge tower. So, the explanation of “Homeland Security” appears to be unrelated to any “national interest” – according to what the Ambassador Bridge officials said that day. Interestingly, security did rear its head during our chat. “Doug’s” head to be exact! Though not partaking in the conversation, in the background the same looking L.S.S. Security figure appeared to be watching the events with a careful eye.

After the March 17th public hearing, I received an email saying that at least two security guards, wearing baseball caps with the decal “L.S.S. Security”, were prominently positioned at the front of the stage where USCG officials were standing as the hearing wrapped up. I was told their presence looked official. Could one of them have been “Doug”?

Just recently I discovered that there is no business listed with the State of Michigan called “L.S.S. Security” and that operating under the security guard license of LSS Consulting is in violation of license rules. I also just learned that it is a criminal issue for a person, including a security guard, to have a shotgun publicly displayed in his truck while on public property. (Michigan State Police said such situations should be reported to law enforcement and if a police department refuses to take a report, the county prosecutor should.)

Why would the U.S. Coast Guard allow the presence at the hearing of security guards from the bridge company?

Many of the Southwest Detroit residents and hearing attendees knew about my incident with “Doug.” The presence of L.S.S. caps seems intended to intimidate. If the Coast Guard mandate was “neutrality and independence,” why were security guards from an interested party allowed to attend?

Can you verify if the man whose photo is posted here was at the USCG public hearing? Who is he? Who authorized the presence “in uniform” of L.S.S Security? Were they paid to attend? – by the USCG? Did they have “walkie-talkies” that communicate to the US Border Patrol – or other “security” people? I look forward to your answers and welcome any questions you may have. Thank you.

Respectfully,

Joel Thurtell

734-476-1667

joelthurtell@gmail.com

www.joelontheroad.com

For additional references, see my blog posts at:

http://joelontheroad.com/?p=991 http://joelontheroad.com/?p=1076 http://joelontheroad.com/?p=1716

See the (unofficial) Coast Guard Report blog:

http://cgreport.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/us-coast-guard-threatens-to-sue-matty-moroun/

Posted in Me & Matty | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Up the Rouge! “unflinchingly honest”

Posted on April 21, 2009 by hro50ta1

Hope I won’t be accused of being a “doc-drop.”

But I thought readers of JOTR might be interested in reading what Midwest Book Review thinks of the book I co-authored with Patricia Beck. It’s called Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River and was published by Wayne State University Press.

Here it is:

An unflinchingly honest look at what the proximity of a city does to a river, April 10, 2009

By  Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) – Illustrated with full-color photography on almost every two-page spread, Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River is a true-life travelogue of a quest to paddle his way up a sadly over-polluted and abused tributary to the Great Lakes. From dealing with logjams to glimpses of water birds to close encounters with the horrific stench of sewer grates, Up the Rouge! is an unflinchingly honest look at what the proximity of a city does to a river, as well an eye-opening journey. Told in brief passages dated by day and hour, Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River is truly an up-close and personal picture of what it’s like to paddle up the Rouge… not that the authors particularly recommend doing so (at least, not without a thorough set of inoculations against disease).

Posted in Beginnings | 1 Comment

Newspaper or TV station?

Posted on April 20, 2009 by hro50ta1

This just in from Detroit Free Press editors:

Folks,

Please join us in welcoming Mike Brookbank to the Free Press. Mike will anchor our Free Press news segments on First Forecast Mornings on WWJ-TV from 5 to 7 a.m. weekdays. The show starts May 5. He will fill the newly created position of digital host.

Mike brings almost 10 years’ experience in broadcast. He’s done everything. He’s handled a camera as a videographer, written scripts, produced shows, reported news and feature packages, and moved into anchor roles. Most recently he helped launch and then anchored/produced the three-hour morning newscast in Colorado Springs for FOX 21 Morning News. Mike has worked at WSJV (FOX ) in South Bend, Indiana; WCIA (CBS) in Champaign, Illinois; and KTTC (NBC) in Rochester, Minnesota. He’s a 1999 graduate from the University of North Dakota. He grew up in the Chicago area.

We worked through many candidates, with three requirements – first, that they be talented, polished and experienced with TV news, that they be able to represent the Free Press well on air and off, and that they be available to start work today in order to help mold our show and be on air May 5th. WWJ-TV already has in place anchors to handle the weather and traffic reports on First Forecast Mornings.

We’re excited about hiring Mike – for his on-air presence, his work as a broadcast news reporter, his versatility, his commitment to journalism and his history of community service. He’s full of ideas and has the experience to make them happen.

Production work at WWJ-TV starts today. Rehearsals begin in earnest next Monday. We’ll be working with folks throughout the newsroom this week and next as we prepare for the launch. We are running fast on this and look forward to bringing you all into the TV process. Mike will be meeting individually with some staffers as he acclimates himself to Detroit and everything we cover.

Please take an opportunity to say hello to Mike today. We’ll have cookies in the photo & video department at 1:30 p.m. – we’ll delay the news meeting until 1:45 today. Please come by and say hello, and watch prototypes of our show-opening graphics, audio and music.

Thanks,

Nancy, Craig, Kathy and Elisha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Andrews

 

Managing Editor/Digital Media

 

Detroit Free Press

 

615 W. Lafayette Blvd.

 

Detroit, MI 48226

 

313-222-8893 office

 

313-223-4665 fax

 

freep.com

 

metromix.com

 

Momslikeme.com

 

yakscorner.com

Posted in future of newspapers | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Up the Rouge! at Allen Park Barnes & Noble

Posted on April 19, 2009 by hro50ta1

Next Up the Rouge! event: Monday, April 20, 7 p.m. Barnes & Noble, Fairlane Green, 3120 Fairlane Drive, Allen Park. Co-authors Patricia Beck and Joel Thurtell will talk about their new book, Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River. The book recently was published by Wayne State Uninversity Press. Beck and Thurtell will show a video with some of Beck’s photos and commentary from the book based on the team’s June 2005 trek up the Rouge River.

Posted in Adventures on the Rouge | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fixing Free Press A-C bias

Posted on April 16, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

Normally, I’m not in favor of outsourcing, especially when it involves covering local news stories.

How could reporters in, say, Bangalore, India have enough background, culturally and politically, to report accurately and concisely on an American news story?

Why, even in Pennsylvania, where the Detroit Free Press’s beloved Yak feature now is written, it’s not likely they have the feel of the community hereabouts in Detroit.

Normally, familiarity with the beat would be my concern.

But what if the American reporting were too wrapped up in, too influenced by, local culture and politics?

What if local reporting were too intellectually hamstrung by American-style journalistic precepts to accurately and concisely report a local news story?

That seems to be the case in the  Detroit Free Press coverage of the David Ashenfelter-Richard Convertino standoff in U.S. District Court.

I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts how Free Press staffers seem to have violated the paper’s own ethical guidelines in their coverage of Convertino.

By the way, JOTR just learned that a federal judge on April 16, 2009 ordered Ashenfelter to answer questions put to him by Convertino’s lawyers. Free Press attorneys are said to be “disappointed.” I’d say the judge did the right thing.

The face-off between Ashenfelter and Convertino dates back to January 2004 when the reporter received from U.S. Department of Justice officials illegally leaked information about Convertino and wrote it into a newspaper story. It doesn’t seem too much of a leap of faith to conclude that the feds wanted to tarnish Convertino before indicting and trying him for alleged improper conduct in a terrorism prosecution.

The tactic backfired when a jury acquitted Convertino. Now he’s suing the feds and wants Ashenfelter to name the people who anonymously maligned him. But Ashenfelter is denying Convertino his day in court. First, he claimed the First Amendment protected him, but a judge said, nah, Dave, you can’t hide behind the First to keep from testifying in what might yet be a criminal case.

The reporter — or rather his newspaper’s attorney — is using the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, saying that naming names might incriminate him.

The initial story used a devious wording to describe the motives of the government leakers. The paper led the public to believe the leakers were whistleblowers in danger of losing jobs — fearing for what the paper called “repercussions.” In fact, it’s hard to imagine the leakers being punished for leaking,at least not back in 2004 when it happened. IOt is pretty clear that whoever did the leaking was in a position to know the inside poop re federal plans to indict Convertino. The leakers may even have been in charge or at least in positions of power in Justice.

The Free Press just can’t seem to accurately cover the story. As I pointed out in my last post, there seems to be some internal dispute at the paper about whether Ashenfelter might be fined or jailed for contempt of court.

And then there’s the question of whether Convertino was charged, tried and acquitted for alleged prosecutorial misbehavior.

If you believe Free Press chronologies of the Ashenfelter-Convertino case, there was no trial, no acquittal.

The first time I noticed this ridiculous omission was in a February 12, 2009 box purporting to list significant events in the case. Failure to mention Convertino’s trial and acquittal negated the whole purpose of the box, since his acquittal was the event that made possible Convertino’s suit against the government and his quest for Ashenefletr’s testimony.

It happened again on March 5, when a Free Press summary of events omitted Convertino’s trial and acquittal.

Why would the newspaper leave out such a crucial piece of information?

Maybe the fact that Convertino had to face the trauma of a trial, along with the irreparable loss of reputation, damage to social and professional standing, adds gravity and pathos to his side of the story. Kind of takes the focus off the reporter’s self-imposed plight and adds weight to the reality that a major newspaper played loose with this person’s reputation in return for a hot story. Maybe the paper doesn’t want to dwell on that aspect of the story.

The acquittal is pivotal and should not be left out of any responsibly-written chronology.

Then there is the fines and jail time. I mentioned this too in an earlier blog post, how I learned from a Free Press February 11, 2009 web post of Convertino’s request that Ashenfelter be fined on an escalating scale up to $5,000 a day. Later, I went back to the story and found no mention of a fine. Why would that fact be subsequentlky erased from the report? It’s a bit too Orwellian for me.

As Goldfinger warned James Bond, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.

Whatever the intentions, distorted reports are being sent to readers by reporters and editors too much in the thick of their own story.

I have a solution: The Free Press can treat its Ashenfelter-Convertino coverage the way it’s reporting for the Yak.

Outsource it.

Hire a team of reporters from the United Kingdom to cover the Ashenfelter-Convertino case in the Free Press. Or maybe find some reporters in Bangalore who’d be willing to tackle the assignment.

Wherever they come from, the outsourced reporters should be willing to look at the case without influence from reporters and editors at the Detroit Free Press.

In this case, outsourcing may be the only way to ensure some semblance of neutrality, at least from the newspaper that helped create the case.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Posted in censorship, Joel's J School, Subpoenaed reporters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment