"Hero" of I-35W

By Michael Metzger

August 13th, 2007

The other day, Sarah McKenzie, editor of the Downtown Journal, passed along one of the strange e-mails that had recently found its way into her inbox. Very strange.

Here’s how the e-mail began: "Former Minneapolis Fire Department Chief Bonnie Bleskachek, an embattled hero to many in the Minneapolis community, hasn't allowed recent personal controversy to stand in the way of helping Minnesota citizens in times of crisis."

Uh…OK.

"Bleskachek, a career firefighter who, in 2004 was celebrated nationwide for being one of the country’s few women to be appointed Chief of a major US city fire department, only to be demoted two years later after becoming embroiled in a political firestorm, is one of the many heroes emerging in Minneapolis’s I-35W bridge collapse."

A hero? Interesting.

"Since the August 1 catastrophe first occurred, Bleskachek has been working tirelessly by coordinating volunteer and emergency supply logistics, and she was the first to respond to an unsolicited call from a Connecticut company offering to contribute a shipment of **********, a new, alcohol-free hand sanitizer, for emergency workers at the disaster scene."

Bleskachek has been working in the city’s Emergency Operations Center since the Aug. 1 bridge collapse. She’s there, of course, because she allegedly beat a lover and harassed co-workers at the Minneapolis Fire Department.

When the former Fire Chief was demoted to her present captain’s position, Mayor R.T. Rybak said Bleskachek showed "exceptionally poor judgment…her actions were irresponsible…jeopardized the reputation of the city and the department she supervised…"

She was given her current assignment so that city officials could "make sure she never returns to a position of manager in this city."

So here’s how that odd little press release came to be. Jay Berkman, a guy with Mata Global Solutions, the licensed distributor of this hand sanitizer, was in Minneapolis talking to representatives from a local retailer.

After he and his associates returned to Connecticut, they heard about I-35W and wanted to help the city they’d just left.

So they called the city’s Emergency Operations Center and left a message that they’d be glad to donate some hand sanitizer. Bleskachek returned the call and accepted the donation.

The company then decided to pat itself on the back a bit — no crime involved there, unlike sexual harassment and assault — with a press release touting both its sanitizer and "hero" Bleskachek.

Berkman said he "Googled" Bleskachek before sending out the release and found out about the controversy surrounding her demotion.

"I know that she’s a local célèbre, if that’s the appropriate word. There’s been a lot of news about her and notwithstanding some of the negative news, I think it’s important for the people of Minneapolis to know this is a person who, despite the adversary and the controversy she has been subject to, and the career swings she has experienced, this is a gal who is working nonstop just trying to do the right thing for the community. And that’s the story. It really is."

When pressed a bit on how much he knew about the person he’d been touting as a hero, Berkman elaborated.

"I’m very familiar with what you see and what you read and what you hear [in the media] is always not what is necessarily the truth, in all due respect. It gets taken out of context. After reading about the controversy with her, you know, it was like ‘F Troop.’ You know that TV show where they stripped the stripes off the guys’ shoulders? It seems to me that’s sort of like her story. You know, she got demoted, humiliated.

"I don’t know what she did. I wasn’t there. If there are pictures of it, God bless whoever took the pictures. But the fact of the matter is, this is a gal who’s been working over 20 years in community service."

What’s kind of creepy about the press release is that Berkman says Bleskachek "approved it."

He says she hasn’t been compensated for her association with his product, however. She is, after all, a city employee.

"That’s her job," he correctly noted.

Her captain's gig is the result of the deal she cut when Rybak and others were trying to figure out a way to fire her without facing a lawsuit the city stood a decent chance of losing. So she can’t supervise anyone these days, but she can accept shipments of hand sanitizer when disaster strikes.

"If the things that she had done were as terrible as portrayed, one would think she would’ve been summarily fired," Berkman added. "If they didn’t fire her, so the mayor’s gotta say what he’s gotta say to protect, you know. They didn’t fire her. They’re giving her a position of responsibility, that’s all I know. I don’t have any, I don’t have any leanings one way, in terms of her personal preferences or anything like that."

Ah. What a relief that is to know.

Before we got off the phone, he offered to send me some hand sanitizer. I said no thanks, we’re not allowed to accept gifts.

He insisted that he could send me some anyway. "I wouldn’t even know that this conversation took place," he said with a little laugh.

The conversation — and the press release — left me with a strange feeling. Very strange. Like I needed to dunk myself in both alcohol and a sanitizer.

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