On Wednesday, Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sets before Rep. Bernie Lieder, DFL-Crookston, the voluminous report on the 35W collapse compiled by the law firm of Gray Plant Mooty. (Photo by Bill Klotz)
Picture and caption are from the above F&C link.
Where in that stack of paper will we find the name or fingerprints of Elwyn Tinklenberg, when it talks of MnDOT look-the-other-way benign neglect?
A report of the report indicated there were seventeen years neglect of a known problem. There also were fiscal implications. Elwyn might not have wanted bridge spending to constrain him when Hiawatha was saying "Build me, and they shall ride."
The Report is online [here].
I expect the first thing I shall do is a search of each of the report subparts for "Tinklenberg" anywhere in the text.
My suspicion is the circumspect lawyers did not name names that way, but I have yet to study things.
The report may be less about finger-pointing than about moving-forward.
State Sen. Steve Murphy and Rep. Lieder issued an initial joint committee press release Dec. 19, 2007, online here, explaining initiation of the Gray Plant Mooty firm's investigative involvement, and describing the joint committee makeup and tasking. In a press release contemporaneous with the release of the May 21, 2008 report, Murphy indicates it is less about blame than ongoing procedural tightening, but politicians are political animals. "Improve communication," is a cliche, but he uses it. He indicates he needs to study reported things in more depth, so I have esteemed company, that way, while I study.
MnDOT's formal response to the report is here.
For more background about the report tasking history, see here, here, here, and here.
Any reader with additional good resource links should add info via a comment.
Certainly Elwyn Tinklenberg's spending goals when MnDOT head highwayman were not to rock any boat or precipitate discord over whether a key bridge needed to be shut down a substantial time and fixed, or redone. Infrastructure decay now is a stated motive for his becoming a reluctant candidate, he's said, but back when it mattered because he ran the shop, it must not have been his thing. He was to have his Hiawatha legacy. It needed much cash to be brought to reality, a big money sinkhole, so was the bridge back-burnered with a fig leaf study run comparable to the Larry Zanko taconite-asbestos fig-leaf thing instituted at NRRI? ("fig leaf" being a term I probably don't need to explain)
See prior Crabgrassing, two items, first this; then this, expressing second thoughts the same day, from a less judgmental perspective.
So, after reading Gray Plant Mooty & Bridge, which is longer than Brothers Karamazov, will my view of that MnDOT commissioned study become one of those instances, "I thought I was wrong but was not?"
More study of the report from back then, by those knowing more of the engineering and having the right to take depositions of persons with direct knowledge, i.e., by the lawyers representing the collapse victims advised by their consulting experts, may be needed before the question of whether Elwyn or subordinates at MnDOT ordered a valid [or a fig leaf] study as cause [or excuse] for postponing [neglecting] funding of bridge repair [shutdown and replacement] during the Tinklenberg-Ventura watch at MnDOT.
Surely, knowing James Oberstar as he does, Elwyn ought to have been able to get the funding - except which party in DC controlled the House then? That was when Mark Kennedy was my representative, I think, not as far back as Bill Luther. And if you are told before Christmas, you can have the fire-engine wagon toy, or the video game upgrade, not both, you choose - and lil' Elwyn chose the light rail instead of the more mundane girder bridge. Life is a string of choices, isn't it? Toys for Christmas, or socks and underwear. Who wants the more mundane but wiser choice?
Bottom line - can you tell from the 30 pounds Gray Plant Mooty dutifully churned - Was that one study mentioned in the earlier linked posts flawed? Was it a fig leaf to cover, "We know it's deficient, so here's a consulting contract to reach a predetermined conclusion, saying 'bad' is not 'too bad' and we can muck along just as we've been doing bridge-wise, and build that frigging light rail?
Will study of the Gray Plant Mooty study give a definitive answer? It's conjectural until the details of the many megabytes are sifted and considered.
Finally, Elwyn Tinklenberg has three studies as part of his Blue Dog, fleas, and scratching situation.First there is the Larry Zanko study and the question of whether cancer risk is being impropitiously promoted, to be spread around as a consequence of spreading around taconite tailings as paving aggregate, a threat that nobody needs or wants in front of their homes.
Second there is this MnDOT Final Study 2001-10 of the I35W bridge status during Tinklenberg's head highwayman tenure - and was there any unwise neglect of the mundane bridge when a sexy light rail legacy to tout was an alternative way for Tink to spend? Will study of the Gray Plant Mooty study give a definitive answer to that sort of consideration?
And again, for the earlier MnDOT sponsored bridge report info, see these two U.Minn. TC campus, "Center for Transportation Studies" links to full pdf materials; here, and here. And for a lets-give-the-benefit-of-doubt expression, until more evidence is available and perhaps determinative, see my thinking, here.
It's only a conjecture until the details of the many megabytes are sifted and considered. It may still be a conjecture after the effort, but the sifting has to come first.
Third there is the MnDOT Highway 10 high-priority highway upgrade study that was propitiously wrapped up May 2002, before Tinklenberg left MnDOT Oct. 2002, and formed the Tinklenberg Group in Nov. 2002, got his head together with James Norman at City of Ramsey in mid-December 2002, and had his first Highway 10 related contract as best as I could discover what was "first," Jan. 2003, surprisingly with City of Ramsey, contact person, surprisingly, James Norman.He could write a book, "How to Become a Millionaire - Through the Revolving Door and Prospering From a Study."
Perhaps he could get Rupert Murdoch to pay him a cash advance, to do it.
With three extended studies to study, [1] Gray Plant Mooty, [2] Zanko and others on taconite fibers and cancer, and [3] Highway 10 saga pages; pinning the tail on the donkey might require a substantial investment of time.
I expect the GOP may have more time and motive to invest it in study than I, (they certainly have more at stake, Bachmann's seat, while I am solely a private citizen with concerns). Also, there are things I enjoy more than thinking about Tinklenberg out of whatever time the reaper may leave me.
However, I wonder if the GOP and Bachmann people are up to the task of real and substantial research effort and thought, vs. Brodkorbian style mud-slinging.
We shall see.