A tale of two Minnesota collapses, see if you can spot any commonalities.
From November of 2013:
Last month, while Minnesota's new health insurance exchange site was scrambling to fix glitches and under fire from critics, its director was on vacation.
MNsure director April Todd-Malmlov took a two-week vacation to Costa Rica around Thanksgiving.
From August of 2007:
When the I-35 highway bridge in Minneapolis collapsed (MNDOT Director of Emergency Management) Sonia Morphew Pitt was out of town.
Most glaringly, far from rushing home to take charge personally when the bridge fell, Ms. Pitt stayed out of town for another 10 days, on a mixed business-and-personal visit to Washington and to Cambridge.
Seems like either the three-named bureaucrats in charge didn’t actually have anything to do or, even if they did, they believe this is government work, it’s not like it’s their own money or integrity or futures at stake. They earned that vacation time!
For the record, Ms. Morphew Pitt was ultimately disabused of her notions about an appropriate level of job engagement. She was relieved of her duties by then Governor Tim Pawlenty’s administration.
Current Gov. Dayton’s reaction?
"I know that the executive director worked extraordinarily hard for months now, probably all of last year and my understanding was this was a long-planned vacation where financial commitments were made," Dayton said.
In other words, ‘heckuva job, Malmlovie’.
