Were you shocked? You have to believe Port Huron Mayor Alan Cutcher, the City Council and City Manager Karl Tomion were as well.

Under public pressure, the council invited Michigan Department of Transportation officials to its Monday meeting to inform Port Huron residents as to the status of the now 6-year-old Blue Water Bridge Plaza expansion project. We have learned that MDOT has a bright, talented staff and they are, well, pretty clever.

Wasn't it about a year ago that St. Clair County Administrator Shaun Groden held a similar show at St. Clair County Community College to corner MDOT about the project's status? Shaun demanded an answer as to which plaza design MDOT was going to build. MDOT shocked everyone at that meeting by announcing it had decided to do yet another environmental-impact study, so we will get back to you in a couple of years.

The anger on Shaun's face that night is what we would see again this week in the faces of Cutcher and Tomion. They were stunned when at the beginning of its presentation MDOT announced it was issuing a press release stating that the Port Huron Township Plan was dead.

MDOT officials hereby declared the Customs Hybrid Plan, with its footprint in the heart of Port Huron at ground level, was now being fast-tracked, and they were immediately moving ahead with implementing this plan.

The city manager and the City Council were dumfounded. It was obvious they didn't have a clue. How could MDOT blindside the council? Why would state officials show so much public disrespect to Port Huron leaders? Why didn't the council fight back? How far down on the food chain are we, anyway?

Was this MDOT's plan to shut down the questioning voices gaining momentum in our community against this hybrid plan? It's done; it's over; and if you behave yourselves, we may throw the city some bones, but understand we don't have to, but we feel your pain.

It's unbelievable that without the completion of required studies, especially MDOT's Holy Grail, the environmental- impact study, it was issuing the edict that the heart of Port Huron was to be turned into a giant truck stop handling 14,000 to 20,000 vehicles a day, growing to 30,000 a day over the next 40 years.

As Councilman B. Mark Neal pointed out, Port Huron is where they send trucks that are so dangerous they will not let them cross the border at the Ambassador Bridge or go through the Windsor Tunnel in Detroit. Apparently, Port Huron is expendable.

Didn't we just have an eye-opening lesson with the Canada trash trucks and how vulnerable we are to a terrorist or a toxic chemical cloud floating over Port Huron?

As Dick Reynolds, business agent for the local carpenters union, declared, this is going to happen, so you should just "suck it up" and move on.

Your leadership appears to have little stomach for a fight. While MDOT and Gov. Jennifer Granholm will continue to feel your pain, you have the choice of "sucking it up" or grabbing your children and running to the townships that are going to catch a windfall from Port Huron's suffering.