Nick Coleman has some questions for Carol Molnau:
1. Why do you need an assistant (Bob McFarlin) to answer basic questions about MnDOT practices and decisions?
2. What role has the governor played in managing MnDOT and the bridge crisis?
3. MnDOT paid a consultant to figure out how to fix the 35W bridge, then ignored the recommendations. Why?
4. What changes, if any, have you made in inspection and repair procedures since Aug. 1?
5. Why did you hire a private consultant to study the collapse (in addition to the National Transportation Safety Board)? Who besides you and the governor will see the findings before release?
6. Do you truly believe there is nothing you could have done to prevent the collapse and the loss of lives?
7. You say MnDOT decisions aren’t solely “engineer-based.” Not even when public safety is at stake? Please justify.
8. The governor says money was not an issue in the collapse, but you say MnDOT “looks at costs to maximize resources.” Reconcile, please. How did “looking at costs” limit work on the 35W bridge?
9. Many defects on the 35W bridge went un-fixed for years. Why are bridges repeatedly re-inspected instead of repairs being made as problems are discovered?
10. Sonia Morphew Pitt, the fired MnDOT manager, led emergency preparedness drills, and yet you say her presence wasn’t required after the collapse. Why not? What was your role in supervising her? When did you first receive complaints about her travels? If it was before the collapse, why was she still in her job?
11. Why did you pick a design for a new Wakota Bridge (years behind schedule and far over budget) that fails half of the time it is used? Finally:
12. Is it not best for Minnesota, and the employees and reputation of MnDOT, for you to resign immediately?
I like number 12. Thankfully, Minnesotans will only have to endure a couple more months of Molnau’s incompetance before Sen. Steve Murphy and the Senate DFL do what Tim Pawlenty should have done years ago and fire her.
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Coleman is a dfl hack nothing more, working for a fish wrapper of a newspaper, losing millions
Nice John use the standard attack the messenger style to try to discredit Coleman…
Some of the questions are valid and should be answered, others are ridiculous. The last one shows that Coleman isn’t a journalist (never has been one) and isn’t really looking for answers. He just wants a story and a head on a pike that he can point at and be proud of.
KH -
He is a columnist, not a journalist.
Whether he realizes it or not, the only difference between Nick Coleman and Katherine Kersten is their subject matter. They are two peas in a pod when it comes to argumentation technique, style, the tendancy to reach for straws, and their blind loyalty to their parties.
And in all reality, that is what they are paid to do by the Strib, so they do their jobs well.
Did I call him a journalist? No, I said he wasn’t one. I was pointing out that what Coleman writes does not need to have anything to do with reality, facts or logic. He, Kersten, Franken, Rush, Coulter made or make their living being loud, nothing more.
Coleman can’t be discredited because he should be given no credit to begin with.
“Some of the questions are valid and should be answered, others are ridiculous.”
Why don’t you enlighten us as to which are valid and which are ridiculous, and why. I think all the questions were reasonable and should be answered by Molnau. She is an abject failure in all possible ways.
Abject failure in all possible ways…… are you a DOT auditor? Have you been able to take a good look at her 5 years as DOT commissioner? Or are you jumping on the bandwagon because Molnau is really easy to beat up right now?
Why don’t you enlighten us on how she is an abject failure in all possible ways?
And for those suggesting that Pawlenty and Molnau are on teh defensive, I agree they are. I’d like to see a more productive two-way dialogue about the bridge learnings. But it is pretty tough to not go on the defensive when Mr. Coleman is going on the offensive LESS THAN 24 HOURS after the bridge falls!
Aug 2, Nick Coleman “This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference. In a word, it was avoidable.”
Hmmm… being labeled incompetent and indifferent before the dust had even settled???? I’d say that kind of attitude would set the tone for an adversarial investigation. Turns out Nick didn’t need the NTSB study to draw his conclusions, either!
The complaints about the StarTrib being a DFL fishrag are a little sad considering how they consistently allow a GOP response to Nick’s columns, either via editorial comment or LTEs (they also don’t usually bother labelling the GOP hacks who write in, even when they’re known partisans and colleagues of whomever Nick took to task). It occasionally happens to other columnists, but not with anywhere the frequency that it happens to Coleman. hard to accuse them of such bias when they provide a free response to the GOP like that. But I’m sure y’all have made up your minds on this one…
Coleman’s most important point, maybe: Carol Molnau is hiding from the press and refusing to answer questions. Maybe the head of DOT gets to do that (though not generally accepted in the aftermath of something like this), but not the Lt. Gov. Sorry, Carol, but you are an elected official and you don’t get to just put your head down.
DantheMan:
Look at what has become of MnDOT since Molnau took over. How can you NOT say she is a failure?! The department is in a shambles. They have no money and now a worthless reputation.
Pawlenty picked someone he knew would advocate against MnDOT, among other reasons, to satisfy his anti-tax urgings.
With the news of Sonia Pitt’s outrageous transgressions on the job and the causative lack of oversight, again, how can you say that Molnau is anything but a failure? I don’t see how anyone can in good faith defend her.
Twin Cities are very near the top of the list of metro areas with worsening traffic. Pawlenty/Molnau have done N-O-T-H-I-N-G to rectify this situation. And in fact, with the collapse of the bridge, it has gotten even worse. MnDOT claim they’ll need $23B over the next 23 years just to maintain our gridlock. And do you think they’ll even get that much?
Failure. Total and complete.
Futhermore, check our her botched handling of the Crosstown 62 debacle. Just get contractors to pony up the dough now…we’ll pay you later, we swear. Yeah, that’ll work. I’m sure the contractors will have NO problem with that… A ‘promise’ to be paid by a department that is so publicly flat-ass broke. Lost a year of work on that one.
And the I-494 bridge idiocy. THAT one’s gonna take twice as long as planned and cost double the amount budgeted. Hooray.
She’s a fucking complete failure. She’s also ugly as sin.
How is it MnDOT’s fault that they aren’t allocated more money? And look at the front page Strib article on improved traffic flow on I-94 provided by adding temporary lanes (completed in one weekend!) after the bridge collapse. Let that be a lesson to us all: “You can’t build your way out of congestion.”
Good job! …Both of you!! Coleman’s questions are really important ones! Thanks for posting this!! FF
The funding situation is partly Molnau’s fault for not advocating on behalf of her organisation.
Yes, the I-94 expansion was good, but about 20 years overdue. And it only happened in the face of a disaster, and it may not be permanent. (Thought I don’t see how they’re going to get away with removing those lanes.)
You’re right that building out of congestion won’t generally work, but that doesn’t give license for Pawlenty/Molnau/MnDOT to sit on their collective asses. That is an excuse.
Would anyone on these boards ever speculate that the Sonia Pitt debacle is as much a factor of what our Government bureaucracy has become as it is an indictment of Molnau’s leadership? We have departments, bureaus, and agencies that employ thousands of people with job titles that could mean a hundred things, and job descriptions that are vague and generic. I’ll bet that there are many Sonia Pitt’s on the dole in our state (and the other 49).
While we are calling for someone’s head, lets not forget about the government monopoly machine that supports these kinds of failures over and over again.
Government monopoly? Should have competing governments?
And no, I won’t agree that the Sonia Pitt debacle is as much an indictment upon bureaucracy. She stayed away for ten days after the bridge collapsed. She’s the emergency manager. How thick-headed do you have to be to not return for that kind of emergency? You could cut the irony with a knife.
As far as Molnau goes, I was never a fan of her appointment. Believe it or not, many conservatives have an enlightened view of mass transit. Molnau’s dislike of mass transit as a legislator made me skeptical of her appointment in the first place.
But let me say this: We take the easy way out way too often. We say “Something went wrong - someone needs to be fired”. And then when that one person is fired, we say “Thank God they are gone. Now the bridge collapse and Pitt scandal will never happen again. We are safe now.”
Who are we kidding? Is it really that simple? If so, we can solve a whole lot of problems by going to St. Paul and firing people from both political parties.
The person responsible for the bridge collapse is…. we don’t know yet. And when we do know, it won’t be A person, it will be a process or even an era who are responsible.
The person responsible for the Sonia Pitt fiasco is Sonia Pitt, and you could argue her Supervisor. As an executive, you need to be able to rely on chain of command in order to know an organization will work. You need to know that someone 2, 3, 5, or 10 rungs down the org chart from you is being appropriately managed by their supervisor.
This may be a scandalous statement here, but I believe these two failure would have been less likely to occur in a private sector organization of the same size.
Blogger-
Pitt was a Pawlenty appointment. There you Republicans go again - refusing to accept or demand responsibility for mistakes that happened on your guy’s watch, with your guy’s people in charge. Executives are are also often held responsible for when their subordinates screw up, because ultimately, the person on top is in charge - but also has responsibility, that word none of you seem to like very much.
Of course, I’ve noticed Republicans talk tough about running government like a business - and then make mistakes that would get themselves fired in the business world.
We all seem to agree on one thing: These types of things would never have occured in the private sector…. or if they would have occured, not tolerated.
My Government monopoly point may need some clarification. Monopolies are bad. Monopolies have no incentive to innovate and economize, but rather milk their cash cow for as long as they can. Monopolies exist when business or organization has no direct competition for the services it provides. DOT and most government agencies are the sole provider of their service. Therefore, our government bureaus operate in an ironically similar fashion to something government is out to get rid of, monopolies.
Don’t get me wrong, government has an important role in our society…. but lets not reduce this to a failing of a couple administrators. The bureacracy system and its flaws carry alot of the blame here.
And to be clear, nowhere have I said Molnau is without blame. Maybe she is. I’m actually not a fan of hers, for different reasons.
I’m just saying that I’m not ready to call for her head based on the limited facts I know. Maybe the newspapers you all read have made a clearer link between her personal day-to-day performance and the root cause of these problems.
“Blogger-
Pitt was a Pawlenty appointment. There you Republicans go again - refusing to accept or demand responsibility for mistakes that happened on your guy’s watch, with your guy’s people in charge.”
This lady was discovered, investigated and fired in a period of about 2 months, which is pretty fast in the Government world. What else are you looking for? Pawlenty to resign?
Umm…I don’t agree. “These types” of things can happen in ANY organisation, public or private. Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, Halliburton, etc, etc, etc.
And as far as Sonia Pitt goes, what she did was very wrong. But maybe she was the fallguy (fallgirl?). Scooter Libby ring a bell?
The Strib not biased??/ ever read their editorials? No wonder they are losing millions… at least Kersten uses facts..and research, and, she is nearly always right… Coleman is a bomb throwing hack
Sonia Pitt’s demise was her own doing. From Washington, let it be known that nothing is happening to her Romeo, who probably convinced her to stay and that she was needed more with him than at her post. The woman always loses her job, face and future, the man in these scenarios may get moved for political expediency, but usually stays in at the same level of responsiblity — or some cases gets promoted. Dan Ferezan has neither received a review and reprimand and life goes on as before for him. As far as Ms. Pitt is concerned, her hiring as an emergency manager was a mistake from the beginning since she had no emergency background based on what I know/read. Certainly, her actions showed that she has no experience in this field. Emergency managers — true emergency managers — go where the action is by rote. They don’t need supervisors to tell them what to do. She made a mistake. BTW…most trips taken by Ms. Pitt since Sept. 06 correspond with similar trips by her Washington friend…
What a novel idea… Pitt is responsible for her own actions. I couldn’t agree more.
Regarding the earlier comment on her being the “fall guy” - yeah, she was the fall guy. The fall guy for her own bad choices.
In regards to Question #7, this is the commissioner’s fancy way of saying that all too often, MnDot projects are guided by political pressure as opposed to actual need. The engineers and professionals can prioritize all they want, but all it takes is an influential legislator and suddenly, there is a “reprioritization” and shazam, funding for a specific project is not available.
For those who are beholden to the funding decisions of MnDot, it stinks no matter if said legislator has and R or D behind their name.
john, Kersten is the hackiest hack who ever hacked. She’s a prime proponent of the “I believe it is so, so I will go find things to support my viewpoint” form of “research”. She frequently makes factual errors and is a blatant demogogue. But she is a hyper-religous conservative, so it seems she can do know wrong in the eyes of the right-wing.
Nick Coleman is wrong sometimes, but not on this one. And Coleman has shown a willingness to go after anyone he thinks has screwed up, for whatever reason. He’s a liberal, but not a blind one. kersten only seems to go after the GOP if one looks like they might stray from the Taxpayers League orthodoxy…
Pitt’s not exactly a fall guy here. She’s earned everything she’s getting. But at the same time, it’s not like the investigation or the questions should end with this idiot. Carol Molnau is either mismanging MN DOT, or not managing it at all. Either way, she should be asked hard questions and should have answer every damn one of them. maybe if she spent a little less time with the arm-wresting and a little more time doing her supposed job?
I can’t argue with what you say about Kersten.
Coleman, however, isn’t any better. I believe he has three main themes that run through his brain, and you an link pretty much any of the columns he writes to one of them:
1. Some Republican needs to be fired, and everything would be better
2. Rich, fat, white men smoking cigars and eating steak are screwing the poor
3. As long as the top tax rate is less than 100%, there is an opportunity to crank it up
I can’t defend Kersten. But face it, you can’t defend Coleman.
Well, it’s interesting to hear what WashingtonPundit had to say, because it’s along with what I was wondering. How influencial is the DC Romeo? Does he have ties to higher ups? Was Pitt’s supervisor aware of the romance and looked the other way because they thought their own higher ups or the feds wanted things that way? Perhaps MNDOT really believed that Pitt could pull strings in Washington DC? If the DC Romeo helped arranged things, isn’t the federal gov’t also on the hook?
All interesting points, Bobbi. Send them to Oliver Stone. I think he could use that kind of material.
The fact that Pitt could remain on the job so long and so incompetently, and the fact that no one asked her to come back to MN, shows that someone was protecting her job. MNDOT didn’t ask her to come back to MN because she was incompetent and not needed. Who was looking out for Pitt? Let’s see that answered publicly.
I have two theories, one a far-fetched conspiracy and one a very realistic scenario:
Conspiracy: Pitt was to spend time in DC, schmoozing with big wigs and having a fling with that guy so that she could advance Pawlenty’s name and buzz as a VP candidate within tight Washington circles. Pawlenty was going to do anything he could to keep this secret and keep Pitt on the payroll (enter Oliver Stone)
Realistic: Everyone knew for a while that she was not a great employee, but the hassle of giving someone progressive discipline within the bureaucracy-laden government system made it easier, and quite possibly less costly, to just keep her on for another couple years until a new appointment would be made
Can’t agree with you DantheMan. Maybe you’re not familiar with how problem employees are dealt with in a bureaucracy. MNDOT had budget issues, lots of employees were cut. Lots of self emposed budget cutting. Her job could have easily been “eliminated” along with other jobs. Her minimal job responsibilities could be transfered elsewheres, like they were during the 35W bridge collapse. Someone in the state govt hierarchy obviously wanted her there.