Well Port Huron, I’m ready for the Bridge Plaza are you ?  

While the State of Michigan stepped in and save birds and frogs from the new Wal-Mart Development in Marine City it appears that the State is willing to put the children of Port Huron at risk.  

Without any studies, public input or fear of the City Council, MDOT has declared that new Proposal #4, the “Custom Hybrid Plan”, is now their “Preferred Alternative” for the new Blue Water Bridge Plaza . I know the name send a shiver down my spine too!  

This plan puts the Plaza in the heart of Port Huron , eating up another 50 acres while putting the Plaza at ground level, destroying 37 business and 131 homes.

 This plan will remove $ 32 million dollars of real estate and property from the City’s tax rolls, not to mention income taxes and water and sewer fees. Annual loss to the local community could be well over $ 1,000,000, at a time of falling revenues.  

This is the plan the Port Huron Area Chamber of Commerce voted to support! What could have possibly possessed them to encouragement such a plan? I hear they are changing their name to the Port Huron “ Township ” Chamber of Commerce?  

Even after years of studies and weeks of “water boarding” MDOT’s Project Manager, Kris Wisniewski, our community could never get a commitment on the Bridge Plaza project location.    

Yet, within weeks of unveiling the Custom’s Hybrid Plan, MDOT announced, without a single study or one word of public input, that this is now the Preferred Alternative, the plan that will be implemented.  

In the world of MDOT this is a plan being super fast tracked.  What does it bring to Port Huron ? Imagine thousands of noisy cars and tractor-trailers, 14,000 to 20,000 per day, parked in this giant truck-stop, spewing out exhaust and other carcinogenic pollution at ground level 24 hours a day, every day.   

All within blocks of 2,000 children at Garfield Elementary, Cull Elementary, Holland Woods Middle schools, church pre-schools, nurseries, Port Huron Hospital (a first responder) and our residential neighborhoods. 

Once the plaza is lowered to ground level, hold your breath Port Huron. Imagine cancer rates soaring. Imagine Port Huron looking like the area around the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit . 

 And what about future expansion? The Port Huron Township plan with 153 acres has enough land for expansion for the next 150 years. In the City of Port Huron where do they go for the next expansion forty years from now?  

I am told that the main issue is that it would be difficult to secure the 1.5 miles of expressway from the Township site to the Bridge. Tell me, secured it from what? Al-Qaeda jumping over the 20 foot high wall.   

If we can’t secure a mile of expressway with a 20 foot high walls how are we ever going to secure the 10,000 miles of  boarders with Mexico and Canada , let alone two ocean fronts.   

 The real kicker is that this plan puts a terrorist bomb, toxic gas or some other WMD right in the populated heart of Port Huron . If you are Al-Qaeda or a locally grown nut case, whether coming from Canada or Detroit , you pass through no inspection points until you are right at the foot of the Blue Water Bridge within a stones throw of thousands of woman and children.            

Tell me, do you really think the very professional MDOT staff believes this is the best proposal for the Plaza? Isn’t it obvious to you that someone higher up on the food chain is about to do real harm to our city, our children!

What should really tic the people of Port Huron off is while Port Huron Township and Fort Gratiot Township Boards were throwing their weight behind the City of Port Huron location what was your Mayor and City Council doing to stop this - to lessen the damage? What is their plan to stop the bleeding of people and businesses from Port Huron ?

Looks like nothing. Too busy planning birthday parties I guess. Looks like Port Huron ’s 150  Birthday is the year they get kicked in the teeth. 

Why hasn’t the Council called Governor Granholm, Representative Miller and Senators Stabenow and Levin on the carpet? Is no one protecting Port Huron ?

Maybe the Council too busy taking fiddle lessons from Nero.