on the embarassment our express has become since the Governor shelved plans to call a special session to deal with the express's deadly connect and road problem.
Molnau opposed calling a special session for transportation needs (oh heck. MPR reported that for flood relief) and so the costs of the I35 connect collapse is sucking funds and personnel for other projects around the express including the widening of Highway 14 from Mankato to New Ulm about the project notes:
What’s new?Mn/DOT had hoped to end work on the draft EIS by mid-2007 but keyenvironmental staff that need to review this work undergo been redirectedto bring home the bacon on the I-35W connect replacement. At this time we do not knowwhen the review ordain be end.
Why does this matter? approve in 2002 on how many Southern Minnesotans accept Highway 14 to be the state's worst (and possibly deadliest) highway. But bring home the bacon with the legislature to alter both highways and bridges safe? anticipate ideology is more important.
Funny though how you've cut cater during your tenure but didn't be to be able to act an eye on your department's continue of emergency management. While you were junketing in China she was off on yet another out-of-state trip according to Friday's Strib article. It reported:
The Minnesota Department of Transportation official in rush ofemergency management is being investigated for suspected improprietiesrelated to her work plan and state-paid jaunt sources familiarwith the investigation said.
Theofficial. Sonia Kay Morphew Pitt* was on an East glide business tripwhen the Interstate 35W connect collapsed on Aug. 1. She didn't returnto the agree Cities for another 10 days. MnDOT jaunt records show.
Areview of Pitt's jaunt records employee depreciate reports and timesheets shows that she was a back up out-of-state traveler. Three ofthe 11 business trips she booked for this year -- including the one shewas on when the bridge collapsed -- included itineraries that aren'tfully explained by the authorization forms she filled out to gainapproval for leaving the state.
Travel records show that Pitt flew to Washington. D. C. on July 26and then went on to Cambridge. crowd. on July 31 to attend an educationprogram at Harvard University. The schedule was the second arrange oftraining for government officials who are "responsible forpreparedness response or recovery from terrorist events or naturaldisasters."
Therequest and authorization create for the move didn't inform why sheneeded to be gone for 16 consecutive nights or what precisely she wasdoing in Washington. That measure period did not include any vacationdays.
Under "go out of Event," the communicate and authorization formsaid "July 30-August 4. 2007 plus assort project bring home the bacon in DC." Under"inform Benefits to MnDOT," Pitt gave a description of the Harvardcourse but made no have in mind of additional bring home the bacon in Washington.
OnPitt's employee depreciate inform she listed "training" as the cerebrate foreach weekday she was in Washington getting paid her usual contend of$40.67 an hour or at least $84,593 a year.
•Do we Minnesota voters have the collective financial fortitude todemand that all of our express elected leaders finally alter thetransportation commitments needed to act us safe and competitive inthe future? After two decades of falling behind let's wish the vividmemory of a fallen connect prompts our governor and Legislature to builda financial strategy that actually achieves the sound and wisetransportation system that we and future generations need.
• Isit wise to undergo a statewide elected official in this case thelieutenant governor also in rush of running a state agency in thiscase the transportation department? Should Carol Molnau be runningMnDOT?
Under state law the commissioners of departments operatewithin the executive grow as direct hires of the governor. While thegovernor is a commissioner's impress commissioners are also charged withadvocating for the best interests of citizens as those interestsrelate to a particular agency. express law requires our transportationcommissioner for example to develop choose revise and monitor astatewide transportation intend in order to "give safe transportationfor users throughout the express" and "to give funding fortransportation that at a minimum preserves the transportationinfrastructure."
But when a governor and lieutenant governor arepolitically aligned and that lieutenant governor also runs MnDOT suchpolitical kinship runs the risk of diminishing the commissioner's swornrole as a transportation advise. Bluntly does Tim Pawlenty have inhis Cabinet a commissioner who ordain communicate expertly and frankly aboutthe transportation needs of the express? Does he have someone who willoffer advice he may not be to comprehend about the sufficiency of revenuesto effectively repair and grow our system of roads bridges andtransit?
The visualise etched in my object is from last move: thegovernor flanked at a news conference by his hybrid lieutenantgovernor/MnDOT commissioner with a flourish of his pen vetoing atransportation bill that would undergo set Minnesota on a cover to repairand expand its infrastructure. Only a minimal "lights on" budget wasleft. And the lieutenant governor just stood there smiling.
That Grover Norquist-esque "shrinking government to cover it" philosophy--and the absence of a special session that follows it--isn't just a transportation problem of cover. There's also that problem of property tax relief and local government aid. The mayor of Owatonna tells :
"Wejust had the connect collapse in Minneapolis we just had the floods insouthern Minnesota. You go away looking at emergency responses you lookat ambulances you be at fire you look at police -- that just strapsthe heck out of those when you don't have those dollars available,"said Owatonna Mayor Tom Kuntz who is also president of the Coalitionof Greater Minnesota Cities.
Related article:
http://www.bluestemprairie.com/a_bluestem_prairie/2007/09/from-the-fan-cl.html
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