Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

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(AP) -  The fired Minnesota emergency manager who
stayed out of state for several days after the Minneapolis bridge
collapse told a Twin Cities television station: "it wasn't my
catastrophe."

      In an interview with KMSP-TV, Sonia Pitt said she was doing her
job from Washington, D.C., after the bridge collapsed last year,
and that she was working "in excess of 12 hours a day, every day,
including weekend days."


      Pitt had been the Minnesota Department of Transportation's
director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 

She had
been in Boston, taking a leadership course at Harvard, and instead
of returning to Minnesota she stuck to her original plan to go to
Washington, D.C. The state says it never approved that leg of the
trip.


      After an investigation, MnDOT found that she had committed
"serious employee misconduct" by misusing state resources and
putting her personal life ahead of her professional obligations.


      The agency fired Pitt last November, and an arbitrator upheld
her firing.


      But Pitt claimed she was doing her job from Washington, acting
as a liaison between the state and federal agencies. 

When asked if
there was a part of her that wanted to return to Minnesota, a part
of her that said "these are my people, this is my catastrophe,"
Pitt responded: "It wasn't my catastrophe. The Hennepin County
Sheriff's office was in charge until Aug. 11."


      Pitt said MnDOT told her not to talk to the media, but then
"sold me out and used me as a scapegoat for what transpired on the
I-35W bridge and thereafter."


      MnDOT did not comment directly to KMSP on what Pitt said in the
story, but said the agency has tightened up its rules on employee
travel.


      Pitt told KMSP that she is the subject of comments when she's
out in public, and that she has "no prospects." She said she
thought she was starting over, moving "half a country away." 

Pitt got a job with the Transportation Security Administration, but was
fired in July, following a Star Tribune story about her hiring.

      Information from: KMSP-TV, http://www.kmsp.tv

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Politics and Government News

The fired Minnesota emergency manager who
stayed out of state for several days after the Minneapolis bridge collapse told a Twin Cities television station: "it wasn't my
catastrophe."

Pitt: Mpls bridge collapse 'wasn't my catastrophe'

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