Fired MnDOT official wants job back

The fired Minnesota Department of Transportation emergency management director who did not return to the state for 10 days after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse has formally asked for her job back.

A lawyer for Sonia Morphew Pitt, who was described in a legislative audit report last week as "belligerent" and intimidating, filed a formal appeal of her firing and said three separate state investigations of her conduct had drawn incorrect conclusions and "wholly ignored exculpatory evidence."

The lawyer, John Fabian, issued a statement Wednesday defending Pitt, but said that Pitt and her attorneys would not comment further until her appeal was concluded.

Pitt's absence from Minnesota in the days after the bridge collapse, which killed 13 people and injured more than a hundred, added to the controversy over MnDOT's response to the accident.

The legislative audit report faulted MnDOT for not doing enough to oversee Pitt's activities, and said Pitt had received $26,000 for expenses she was not due or for work she did not perform.

"I'm wondering why she did not cooperate with any of the state investigations if she feels like she hasn't done anything wrong," said Rep. Aaron Peterson, an assistant DFL majority leader and member of the legislative audit commission.

Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, another commission member, said Pitt's conduct did not sit well with voters. "I think they would be appalled if her job would be reinstated," she said. "I would say the majority of my constituents were very disappointed -- well, more than disappointed" by her actions.

In a five-page rebuttal letter Wednesday, Pitt's lawyer said Pitt was in Boston at a conference at the time of the collapse. "She immediately obtained a separate workspace at the Kennedy Library [in Boston] and began working on coordinating state and federal aid and emergency responses," Fabian stated.

On Aug. 3, two days after the collapse, Fabian said, Pitt flew to Washington D.C., where she "acted as a liaison between federal and state agencies in implementing emergency response efforts." State investigators, he added, did not acknowledge that "every interviewed witness testified that Ms. Pitt's job duties did not require her to be in Minnesota following the bridge collapse."

He also said that Pitt's filing for meal expenses at conferences where meals were provided ignored the fact that Pitt had "special dietary needs."

Fabian added that Pitt's contacts at the Federal Highway Administration "expressed gratitude for her presence in Washington, D.C., following the bridge collapse," and said Pitt was "nationally renowned" for helping making Minnesota a leading state for emergency preparedness.

The statement also disputed Pitt's "inappropriate" personal relationship with Daniel Ferezan, a Federal Highway Administration official. According to a MnDOT investigative report released earlier, Pitt had made frequent, lengthy personal calls to Ferezan on her MnDOT cell phone during work hours.

"The investigators' findings deem many of Ms. Pitt's business-related trips to the Washington, D.C., area as 'vacation' time, merely because Mr. Ferezan lives there," Fabian wrote. "Ms. Pitt was not with Mr. Ferezan during typical business hours, but was working or attending conferences during these trips."

In a brief, written statement, MnDOT said Pitt had the legal right to appeal her dismissal. "Mn/DOT, as a government employer, respects the rights of employees to follow that process," the statement added.

Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles, whose office issued the report on Pitt, said Wednesday that she had been invited to present her story before his office issued its findings, provided she did so under oath. "She refused to do that," he said.

Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, the commission's chairman, said he found the appeal "sad, disappointing -- and not surprising." He added: "I think that three investigations show what most Minnesotans intuitively get, and that's when the bridge went down, she should have come back."

Mike Kaszuba • 612-673-4388