Thursday, August 02, 2007

Crediting reasonable politicians 

A number of MOB bloggers have noted some people politicizing the collapse of the I-35W bridge. (See Michael FMI.) Let's give credit to two DFL politicians who have shown more reason:

"The fact MnDOT did not bring that forward and request funding tells me engineers did not have any reason to be concerned about its safety,'' Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said, adding that safety is the agency's top priority.

"If they know there was any risk with this bridge, that would be their highest priority with spending dollars,'' she said.

"We have never sensed there were any troubles with this particular bridge,'' said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis.

Hortman emphasized that a divisive battle this year during the legislative session about the quality of state roads isn't related to the collapse.

"All of the recent battles about funding don't have anything to do with this,'' she said.

Thank you Reps. Hortman and Hornstein.

UPDATE: Here's an example of unreasonable, from former St. Cloud mayor (and blog fan) John Ellenbecker (DFL-Derangedville) in a discussion on the Times chat.
AND A GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO DAVID STROM AND ALL THAT YOU HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN MINNESOTA - YOU STUPID [vulgarity meaning a child born out of wedlock -- kb]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Charming. Have any of you thought about how much light rail costs, and whether that money would be better spent on bridge repair? 5600 daily rides on Northstar = $309 million in capital cost. 140000 daily trips on the I-35W bridge... no, that's the Republicans' fault.

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