EckerNet.Com

Back when the bridge collapse you could swing a welfare check without hitting a liberal claiming it was all the Republican\’s fault. We needed higher taxes to pay for maintenance! We needed Molnau gone because somehow it was her fault. Pawlenty obviously caused the collapse because he vetoed the transportation bill. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.

Back then my State Senator attended a transportation forum, which was filled with 100 liberals….and then him. There he was shouted down and verbally attacked as if he pulled the supports on the bridge himself. One guy even waved his finger in his face claiming that my Senator had \”blood on his hands\”. Wow, and while it was on You-Tube at the time….it appears to have mysteriously disappeared.

Why could that be. It\’s almost as if a report came out recently stating that the reason for the bridge collapse had nothing to do with money, or maintenance or anything else. It\’s as if an official investigation actually found that the original design was at fault. And what more that continuing maintenance on the bridge made the problem worse by adding weight. That\’s the type of thing that would make liberals second-guess themselves.

Sorta like this guy, who berated Sen. Gerlach for voting against a gas tax, because we need accountability for this bridge collapse and dammit Molnau needs to be gone because of it!!

So tell me again how that 5-cent gas tax and getting rid of Molnau would have magically made half-inch gussets an inch thick??

Because otherwise it almost seems like you didn\’t know what the hell you were talking about and just wanted to raise taxes for the hell of it.

This is a retraction I\’m more than happy to make and since it\’s about to slide off my front page I wanted to give this just as much attention as the original statement had. A week ago, I wrote that Pawlenty, Seifert and other Republicans had \”rolled over\” on the issue of the gas tax. And in my defense according to statements made in the local media it certainly appeared as if they were.

Shortly afterwards, Seifert wrote me an email stating his position and offering some ideas on how to move forward. I was happy to see that Seifert appears to indicate that he is not \”rolling over\” on this issue and I certainly hope that continues to be the case. Although as I indicated in follow-up emails, principles mean more to me than party, so criticism earned will be provided. But I have provided a clarification of his position in my original post.

However, in addition to stating his position, I think Seifert offered a lot of excellent ideas on moving forward. With his permission, I provide them here because I think they are more than worthy of notice and serious discussion.

When the victims are all recovered (which is very important to do first, before politics), our caucus leadership team will get the message out on OUR House Republican ideas to help with deficient bridges and roads.

8 ideas to Move Forward on Road and Bridge Repair

Overall, there will be some sacrifice needed to repair deficient bridges and build needed infrastructure like roads. The question is, who does the sacrificing? I would argue that it should be the government budget sacrificing before the family budget.

1. Before rushing in to raise taxes, let\’s certify the November budget forecast. It\’s expected to have a boat-load of surplus money (hundreds of millions of dollars of both on-going and one-time money), which could be used to pay for the needs of infrastructure. How silly would it look to rush into a September-October special session to raise taxes, just to have hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) certified in November as surplus?
2. Before rushing in to raise taxes, let\’s use the $135 million from the defunct Bonding Bill of 2007 for deficient local roads and bridges.
3. Let\’s examine government spending top to bottom. Would taxpayers want money to be spent on a deficient bridge or the Gorilla and Polar Bear exhibit at the Como Zoo…or more welfare…or a 17% increase in the legislature\’s budget…or many other items? We pick deficient bridges first.
4. The legislature will have a $1 billion Bonding Bill for 2008. Raising taxes in a special session will simply allow waste and pork in addition to the tax increase. Our caucus will force votes on amendments and demand that a huge chunk of that money go to pay for roads and bridges. The people of Minnesota deserve priorities in spending.
5. The MVST dedication can be sped up. Let\’s do it. Let\’s leverage some of that money for Trunk Highway bonding to move forward on major improvements that need to be done.
6. We\’ve been told that permits and regulations are strangling the ability to quickly and efficiently more forward in reconstruction of bridges. It\’s pretty safe to say that the waivers for the collapsed bridge will hasten its reconstruction by almost 2 years. Why not waive these for any deficient bridge on the DOT list?
7. The Stillwater bridge is rated lower than the bridge that collapsed. Yet, special interest groups have had lawsuits filed to keep the bridge from moving toward replacement. Time to move forward with tort reform.
8. The House Republicans offered a plan to use about $250 million from the general fund last year for roads and bridges. With the vetoes and line-item vetoes, this is a safe number. We will again demand to use this money before raising taxes.

It certainly appears as if Seifert has all intentions of being the rational adult in the room. Let\’s hope that the local DFL listens to reason, and the rather explicit will of the people, and finds ways to fund repairs without taxing us to death.

Psymeister sends out the best news I\’ve heard today!!!

I just got off of the phone with Gary Gross, who incidentally just got off of the horn with State Representative Steve Gottwalt. Gross stated, when asked about the probability of a special session, Mr. Gottwalt replied, \”God, I hope not!\”

There appears to be a substantial number of Republican lawmakers who are seeing the call for raising the state gas tax to be what it is– an opportunistic ploy by DFL lawmakers to ramrod a political agenda by exploiting a tragedy that had absolutely nothing to do with either the presence of or absence of a tax increase. While they certainly see the need to prioritize and ensure the safety of bridges and other infrastructure, they are likewise acknowledging that the answer lies not in an additional burden on Minnesota taxpayers, but rather on a good, old-fashioned prioritization of allocation of resources.

The bottom line is that neither a special session nor a tax increase is required to prevent what happened on the I-35 W bridge from happening elsewhere.

A phone call or email to Governor Pawlenty\’s office will go a long way toward ensuring that the solution to the bridge and infrastructure issue is a prudent, effective measure, rather than a knee-jerk tax-and-spend reaction.

He\’s got more information and updates at his site…check em out.

Oh and start making those phone calls!!!!

In reading up on the latest news on the bridge collapse, I couldn\’t help but notice this little tidbit :

So far, investigators say they have ruled out nothing and will consider everything from the expansion and contraction of the bridge in the extreme weather conditions of Minneapolis to the possible corrosive role of bird droppings.

Bird droppings? Ok sounds silly. But since the politicos and the media have developed a theme of jumping to conclusions and making irrational decisions based upon sheer emotion rather than facts and physic, I figure why fight it. So using their line of logic, I think I can conclude that the mere possibility something led to the collapse, means it did lead to the collapse. And if is did lead to the collapse, clearly it needs to be stopped.

Therefore, I feel it is absolutely necessary to eradicate every bird in Minnesota. Clearly they all must die, or every bridge in the state will come tumbling down. Don\’t bother introducing science or reason into this, this is an emergency man!!! This is no time for facts!!!

And since the theme also seems to include finding some way to include your pet project to the irrationality. I hereby demand that the state allocate at least $100 million to the EckerNet \”Bridge Security and Child Welfare\” Fund. How will this public money be spent??? Well not that it\’s any business of the taxpayer, but I plan to use that money to buy up every firearm I could possibly want, and some I don\’t want. With them I plan to employ the rest of the MN Militia to eradicate all our feathered friends.

If you disagree with my plan, or think it\’s ridiculous, then clearly you have no heart and want innocent Minnesota children to die in another bridge collapse. Come on, it\’s for the children!!! Why do you hate children??

[This satire has been brought to you by the state of disgust.]

Related news : Captain Ed takes this idea that lack of money/taxes somehow caused this disaster, and beats it like a rented mule.

Well with the governor all about giving his blessing for a gas tax increase, and Marty Seifert rolling over on the issue, it seems we\’re destined to get the gas tax increase we don\’t need. Instead, Pawlenty, Seifert and other MN Republicans will succumb to DFL pressure to pass a gas tax to pay for….well, we\’re not entirely certain. Even had a gas tax passed it\’s not likely it would have gone to the bridge since everyone that looked at it said it didn\’t need any further work than what was already being done to it.

So presumably we\’re gonna be using this money to work on our backlog of road work. Although I suspect we might have enough money to do that if we stop building silly things like light rail and stop subsidizing boondoggles like ethanol.

And while we\’re on the topic of silly boondoggles what happened to the transportation amendment we passed?? I thought that passed all the money we\’d ever need for transportation? So why are we passing gas taxes now?? Because most, if not all, of that money goes to light rail construction rather than roads.

No instead, we\’re gonna submit to irrational emotional raving by the Minnesota DFL, who rather than wait until we have the facts, wants to do whatever plays best in the media. And right now that is how much they care about our roads…after spending lots of time and money trying to replace them with light rail. And playing right into it is our GOP delegation who wants to say \”Heh, we like roads too!\”. Really? That\’s your strategy??

Guess what guys, liberals will never give a conservative credit for ANYTHING, even if they are doing what the libs wanted him/her to do. So stop trying to suck up to the media and the liberals, they aren\’t gonna give you credit for it anyway. It\’s time for Pawlenty, Seifert and the rest of the MN GOP delegation to play the rational adult in the room, and look at our priorities.

Right now our priorities appear to be burning our food supply and building light rail. You are welcome to change that to investing in the most efficient fuel supply (gasoline) and/or building the most cost-effective transportation method (roads). But stop trying to play right into the DFLs hand, especially since it\’s not gonna gain you anything, and it\’s gonna cost us (year remember us?) lots and lots of money….I quote

But in order to solve the problem, she said, \”we would have to raise gas taxes 34 or 35 cents a gallon.\”

Yeah, that\’ll win over the public for sure!!

UPDATE : Representative Marty Seifert contacted me via email, as he felt I had mischaracterized his position.. Indeed, I hope I have, and that he continues his excellent track record so far on holding the line on taxes.  He sent a long email explaining his position and some ideas he had.  I may, with his permission, publish some of that, but I really felt he summed his position up perfectly here.

Overall, there will be some sacrifice needed to repair deficient bridges and build needed infrastructure like roads.  The question is, who does the sacrificing?  I would argue that it should be the government budget sacrificing before the family budget.

I agree 100% and I hope this is the approach he goes into any future legislative session with.  It\’s no secret that Seifert was one of the reasons the last session was such a success for taxpayers, and I\’m VERY happy to see Seifert hasn\’t \”rolled over\” on the issue.  And I hope that his future performance continues to reflect that.

I just received the following from a staffer for the Minnesota House of Representatives. Lots of good information here, so I felt it worth of broader distribution.

Recovery Operations, Investigation, Immediate Federal Funding andBridge Inspection History

RECOVERY OPERATIONS:
The Minneapolis Fire Department is the lead agency at the site. The State is acting in a support capacity and is responding to the requests from the local authorities on site. The Governor has directed all state agencies to provide necessary assistance to help local, state and federal units of government respond and recover from the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The emergency executive order will remain in effect until the conclusion of the emergency.

INVESTIGATION:
Governor Pawlenty said Minnesota \”has one of the better or best bridge inspection programs in the country. However, that\’s little consolation when you have a horrific tragedy like this event. The first thing we\’re going to do is make sure that we immediately inspect and check all bridges of this design and that fall into this category on the assessment scale.\”

The full forensic investigation will be conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is an independent federal agency charged with determining the probable cause of transportation accidents and promoting transportation safety.

The Governor has announced that an independent/outside firm will be hired to conduct an investigation outside of MNDOT or NTSB. A forensic engineering firm, Wiss, Janney and Elstner, will lead the investigation.

The Governor also said the Minnesota Department of Transportation will hire an outside firm to evaluate its inspection practices and conduct emergency inspections of three similar bridges: trunk Highway 23 in St. Cloud, trunk Highway 123 in Sandstone and trunk highway 243 is Osceola/St. Croix.

FEDERAL FUNDING:
Earlier today, the federal government provided an immediate $5 million to Minneapolis to help deal with the logistics of dealing with the I-35W bridge disaster.

BRIDGE INSPECTION HISTORY:

• No structural deficiencies were found during MNDOT\’s bridge inspections in 2005 and 2006.
• The bridge deck was scheduled to be replaced in 2020.
• In 2005, federal government inspected and classified as \”Structurally Deficient,\” which means that it needs to be considered for replacement; it does not mean that it is not a safe bridge. On a national level, between 70,000 to 80,000 bridges fall into this category.
• MNDOT was aware of this classification when it completed its 2005 and 2006 inspections.

HOW CAN PEOPLE HELP
You may be hearing from constituents wondering how they can help. Here is some information you can share in email updates, etc. Thanks!

DONATIONS
Minneapolis Red Cross – donate blood and money

• Web site: www.redcrosstc.org/
• Donate blood: 1-800-448-3543
• Donate money: 612-460-3700

UNITED WAY (2-1-1)
The United Way has an established protocol for handling donations. They work with state and local officials by consolidating offers of emergency assistance and making them known to responders. Contact United Way\’s 211 hotline for donations. Just dial 2-1-1 or 651-291-0211.

FAMILY ASSISTANCE CENTER
Minneapolis Red Cross has established a Family Assistance Center at the Holiday-Inn Metrodome, 1500 Washington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55454

That\’s a phrase that\’s been tossed around alot lately, and I can understand why, it\’s a term that implies doom & gloom. And heh, controversy and suspense is something the media loves right now so they can stretch their ratings out a little farther for this disaster. This is after all the slow news month of August. So bring on the inaccurate reporting!!

Ok first of all the fact that the bridge was designated \”structurally deficient\” does not mean the engineers were jumping up and done screaming \”OH MY GOD!!! The world is ending, this bridge is gonna fall down right now!!!!\”. No it means \”heh, some stuff needs fixing on this thing, here\’s the list, get to it.\” And my understanding is that that was being done. An understanding somewhat supported by the fact that there were nineteen construction workers on the bridge at the time of collapse….one still missing.

So everyone can stop hyperventilating. The report never indicated the bridge had to be closed. It indicated it would have to eventually be replaced, but I could have told you that before they built it in the first place.

Gax tax, veto, blah blah blah. None of those bills would have replaced the 35W bridge, and they certainly wouldn\’t have done it before this collapse.

So….before we start trying to force a smoking gun into someone\’s hand, let\’s start by figuring out why the damn thing collapsed first. And before we do that, how about the dead…it would be nice to bury them first yeah?? And even after that I\’m sure you\’ll have your choice of reasons. In addition to the NTSB, Pawlenty has asked for an independent investigation apparently. How their expertise can compare with NTSB is unknown to me but he wants to make sure we know what happened. Fair enough. I just hope they both come of with the same thing and we can move on from there.

Holy crap, the 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed less than an hour ago. The images on TV are insane.

Thirty to fifty cars were on the bridge including a school bus full of children. From aerial video it looks like more than a couple people are hurt, no word yet on any fatalities…which can only be a good thing so far. I hope the ones I see hurt are the only ones. Although at the back of my mind I\’m wondering what\’s underneath all that concrete and metal. I\’m also noticing alot of gasoline floating on the surface of the water….with burning trucks on the bridge they better hope the river itself doesn\’t ignite.

No words yet on what caused it. Some have raised the spectre of possibly terrorism, but I would be very cautious of that. There is certainly nothing indicating that at this point. I do see construction equipment in the area, so it\’s possibly they were doing some work on it, or it was brought it for rescue work.

I guess my first thought is, what the hell? Bridges don\’t collapse anymore. We\’ve been building bridges for thousands of years, we got this thing down. How does a bridge just collapse without earthquakes or tornadoes or whatever?? Answer : They don\’t.

I guess I\’m also wondering how this is likely to play out. Certainly it\’s gonna be at least a year before they get another one built. There\’s gonna be investigations, lawsuits and non-stop grandstanding. But certainly this is not a good time to be working at MNDOT.

Very bad timing, not that there is a good one though. Yeah, it was during rush hour but at least it was the tail end. Yeah, it was during the summer but at least it wasn\’t the start of summer.

It does occur to me that this happens literally the day before hundreds of Republicans come to town to plan the 2008 National Republican Convention. With the collapse less than 24 hours before the start of that meeting, does that put the convention at jeopardy for Minnesota?? Certainly both Minneapolis and St. Paul have already sunk alot of time, effort and money into that. Does the RNC now decide it\’s not a good location, especially since I\’m not entirely certain a new bridge would be in place for 2008??

Of course those are all petty things compared to the immediate concerns of getting the people still on that bridge to safety. And it is nice to see nearby residents helping out victims. We even saw one guy paddle his KAYAK over to the collapsed section. What he\’s planning on accomplishing with a kayak I have no idea, but he gets an A for effort.

UPDATE : It is absolutely disgusting to see how the liberals respond to this. We don\’t even know why it collapsed yet but they are reading to hang Pawlenty and Bush over it. In their eyes…

1. Bridge collapses
2. ????
3. Profit!!! (Bush and Pawlenty blamed)

Now they are just trying to figure out step 2….disgusting.

UPDATE : So I\’m trying to decide if that fact that it\’s now a \”recovery\” operation rather than a \”rescue\” mission is a good thing or bad? On one hand, it means everyone that can be rescued has been, on the other hand considering the number of cars involved here, does that mean there were alot of people who could not be rescued?? Six deaths confirmed….although I\’m already hearing rumors of more. Let\’s hope that\’s all they are.

UPDATE : They had bomb-sniffing dogs going over the wreckage. Ok, not surprising. I absolutely cringed when I heard witnesses talking on the news when they\’d say things like \”…it was like a bomb…\”. I understand why they say it, it\’s an easy and universal comparison, but it\’s this same sort of loose talk that conspiracy theorists latch onto. We got enough to worry about without people claiming terrorists were involved.

UPDATE : I keep going back to my initial reaction \”Bridges just don\’t collapse in the US\”. This is not something that happens. Oh sure, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc, then it happens. Little rickety neglected wooden bridges to take carts across stream, yeah then it happens. But bridges, especially very large and heavily constructed steel bridges just don\’t collapse. I\’m stuck wondering, how?

Reportedly the bridge was just inspected last year, and while they found signs of fatigue, they found no cracks and they did not force MN DOT to replace the bridge. And really it\’s only 40 years old and it\’s made of steel. Plus construction crews were on it at the time of collapse so it\’s not like it was being neglected.

Pull all that together and I haven\’t answered my own damn question, but I keep coming back to it. Certainly I\’ll be very interested in what happened. I see people speculating about construction on the bridge but that was concrete work, not steel work. I\’ve heard mention that a train was going underneath at the time (indeed it was crushed by the collapse) and I guess I don\’t buy it. I\’ve heard people point out bumper to bumper traffic, hell we have that all the time. I\’ve heard people point out the heat….well it was less than 90 degrees at the time. Maybe all of it together?? I still don\’t buy it, all of those have been in combination lots of times before. It still doesn\’t make sense.

UPDATE : Ugh, 7 dead….and reportedly expected to increase.

Although it\’s worth remembering the good things here. That school bus of kids?? All safe. All those people on the bridge, after getting out of their cars instead of running away, they helped others. First responders were people from nearby apartment buildings. Some bright spots in all this.

UPDATE : Just heard someone on Channel 5, although I missed the name. He was claiming that the inspection last year saw cracks….NOTHING I have read indicates that. And since the guy was trying to blame the state and lack of funding I suspect he was exaggerated just trying to point fingers.

UPDATE : And like clockwork they immediatly interview a \”bridge expert\” who states that MN DOT does an \”excellent job\” inspecting their bridges. And apparently that report states that cracks are \”not likely\”, and that it just recommended monitoring FOR fatigue cracking. It does not state there WAS cracking. I\’m trying to find this report online….I\’m sick of going off what I\’m hearing from media. Federal requirements are every two years, MN DOT does it every year.

UPDATE : 2001 Inspection Technical Report can be found here. Still working on the 2006 one.

UPDATE : Ok it\’s kinda amusing to hear FoxNews describe what Minnesotans are like. I feel like we\’re the subject of a National Geographic special or something.