City Pages ran a kid-gloves piece on MPLS Fire Chief Bonnie Bleskachek's recent legal woes for diddling the help yesterday. To be more precise, they are not HER legal woes, they are MPLSessesses since they are paying for her defense and will utlimately be on the hook for whatever these cases are eventually settled for out of court. Bonnie is currently vacationing in P-town (presumably, according to anonymous sources) still collecting her generous $113,000 annual salary while this mess gets sorted out.
A few things stood out in the piece.
-- She is being sued by THREE female firemen in three separate cases and a possible fourth suit by ANOTHER female fireman is apparently in the works. Oh, and she is currently domestic-partering with a FIFTH MPLS female fireman. What kind of lesbian dating service is the MFD running anyway?
-- Believe it or not, Bush is partially to blame for the whole thing (in reference to her not hiring two battalion chiefs which started the mess):
According to several people who were present at these talks, the chief's rationale for abolishing the testing process was that additional personnel were needed to handle administrative duties. Owing in part to new mandates placed on the department by the federal Department of Homeland Security, she explained, more staffing was required at City Hall. Consequently, there was no longer sufficient funding to hire the two battalion chiefs.
-- The role of the Minneapolis Women Fireman's Association (MoWFA) which was started by Bonnie and another firelady in pushing her all the way to the top of the heap and how they were able to water down the physical standards of the role of fireman in order for more women to be hired, something the CP piece describes as:
The group also was instrumental in working with Chief Forte to design a physical test that directly correlated to skills needed on the job without being discriminatory toward women.
When standards are being "directly correlated," citizens of MPLS are less safe.
So not only do people who live in MPLS have to live with a culture of rampant crime and the inherent safety problems (yes, even in the "good" parts of town) they also have to live with the ridiculous notion that a five foot two inch, 120 pound woman will be the one who shows up to pull them from their burning home (that is, if they aren't busy having a lover's spat at an actual fire as the piece describes).
Now a guy like Lileks probably has nothing to worry about since a fireman such as Bonnie could easily fetch him from a burning Jasperwood. But imagine the Mitch Bergs of MPLS (I know, he lives in SP, this example is for demonstrative puporses only)--who's gonna carry a dude that's 6-5 and whatever out of his abode?
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