Our View: MnDOT’s laxness is alarming

05/25/2008

Mankato Free Press
May 25, 2008


The recently completed investigation by a private law firm on MnDOT procedures and their relation to the I-35W bridge collapse should scare taxpayers and the traveling public.

The report, commissioned by a special joint legislative committee, concluded that MnDOT officials, because of budget concerns, did not properly fix what was clearly a bridge that needed major repairs. They didn’t fix it because it was too costly, because they knew political leadership would not accept the cost. Memos, documents and other materials uncovered in the investigation clearly show budget was a concern when it came to the safety of the bridge. No one is making this up. It’s in MnDOT documents.

So, it’s extremely troubling that new MnDOT Commissioner Tom Sorel would say, “Addressing the condition and safety needs of our bridge system has never been and never will be subject to question due to budgetary concern.” We’re not sure where Sorel was getting his information. Of course safety decisions were made with a budget in mind. That’s always been the case and probably will be some time in the future. That’s extremely important for taxpayers to understand. Sorel does a disservice to them by not admitting this upfront.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s spokesman Brian McClung followed the same line, only worse. His quote: “It is not possible to know whether anything in this report is relevant to the bridge collapse.” This is just spin, and not even reasonable spin. It almost seems like an effort to say exactly the same thing over and over again, no matter how untrue, until people believe. Minnesotans shouldn’t believe it for one second.

The facts from the report, which reviewed 24,000 documents and included nearly 50 interviews, speak for themselves. MnDOT officials called the bridge a “budget buster” and decisions on its repair and maintenance were put off, in part, because of funding. Instead of spending $40,000 on a quality radar study of the bridge’s deck in 2006, engineers dragged a chain across it to listen for weakness in the concrete. The radar test, according to a MnDOT internal e-mail, “was not completed due to lack of funding.”

So when Sorel says safety “never” was “subject to question due to budgetary concern” it’s hard to give him much credibility.

We can accept that the collapse of the bridge was not any one person’s fault. But we can’t accept the spin that money was not an issue. Clearly it was. It should give public officials pause the next time they think about keeping investments low to achieve a tax ranking. Our zeal to improve our tax ranking apparently trumped our zeal to keep the public safe. The bridge’s safety was not a recent issue. It had been rated severely deficient for 17 years.

The governor, and the MnDOT commissioner, need to admit there was a problem, and follow the advice of one of their own, Republican Rep. Neil Peterson, who said: “Somehow, somebody had better pull this up (and) get their act together.”