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GSA Non-Workergate Video; American Idle
Topic Started: Apr 6 2012, 12:19 PM (1,996 Views)
Baldo
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GSA Official in charge of Las Vegas Conference was partying!

Jeff Neely’s Pacific Adventure

Well after an inspector general began auditing a lavish Las Vegas conference, Jeff Neely, who headed the General Services Administration’s San Francisco office, took his wife on a taxpayer-funded trip to Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Neely boasted in a November 2011 email that the trip was a “birfday” gift. (Fiddy must be so proud.) His wife responded positively to the gesture.

“It’s yo birfday … We gonna pawty like iz yo birfday!” she emailed to Neely. “All sounds good. Need to check date line … Do we fain or lose a day going to Guam? If so we will have to adjust sked.”

Neely’s wife’s name is redacted from the email obtained by Roll Call, but the email was discussed in a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing today, indicating Neely’s wife was his correspondent on the chain.

The itinerary of the trip, as outlined by Neely in the preceding email, was this: “So we head to Hawaii. I’ll probably go over on Saturday Feb 4. I will work in Honolulu on Monday Feb 5. Head to Guam on Tues. Wednesday in Guam. Thursday in Saipan. Friday Feb 10 leave saipan. That gives us a coupld of days each on Guam and Saipan.”

In November, GSA Inspector General Brian Miller had already been investigating the Las Vegas conference for some time. He briefed top GSA officials about his preliminary findings in May 2011.

A source close to the investigation said Miller is investigating whether Neely’s wife paid her travel expenses, but the couple at least shared a room paid for by taxpayers....snipped

http://www3.hoh.rollcall.com/jeff-neely%E2%80%99s-pacific-adventure/


can you imagine the waste in our govt?
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Baldo
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GSA Seeks Charges in Vegas Training Scandal

The General Services Administration’s inspector general has asked the Justice Department to consider criminal charges against an official who has been placed on administrative leave for his role in the $800,000 Las Vegas training conference, The Washington Post’s blog the Federal Eye reported.

Sources told the Post that GSA Inspector General Brian Miller turned over to federal prosecutors evidence that Jeffrey Neely took such things as an iPod and speakers, GPS tracking system, camera, and Sony tablet for personal use from a storeroom in the San Francisco-based headquarters for the agency’s Pacific Rim region.

The items were intended as gifts for an employee-rewards program. Neely, a career senior executive with the Public Buildings Service who was assigned to organize the conference, was placed on administrative leave along with four other regional commissioners for their role in the Las Vegas conference that prompted the resignation of Administrator Martha Johnson and the firing of two top deputies, the Post reported...

...Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported late Friday that an internal government memo shows GSA officials knew of a spending problem months before the scandal burst into public view.

The GSA's deputy administrator, Susan Brita, emailed agency officials last July that the inspector general found no substantive agenda at the 2010 conference at a Las Vegas resort, the AP reported.


She said that expenses for a clown suit, bicycles for a training exercise, tuxedos and a mind-reader didn't lend themselves to the claim of a substantive conference.

Brita also questioned why a regional administrator in charge of the conference received only a disciplinary letter. That administrator was placed on leave just this month....snipped

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Jeffrey-Neely-GSA-Las/2012/04/13/id/435860


No agenda for the conference??

It was a vacation & everyone, who attended the conference and didn't report it to the inspector general office, should be made to refund the cost.

Edited by Baldo, Apr 17 2012, 02:40 PM.
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LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
I can't imagine the arrogance.

I worry about using a postage stamp that belongs to the company to mail a personal letter...
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Baldo
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They were so arrogant & dumb posting photos on her Google account Living the high life

Posted Image


Mr. Neely bares a bit more in a photo collection on his wife’s Google+ page. There visitors can see photos of Neely staying in a luxurious suite at the M Resort Spa & Casino in November 2009, during one of the eight scouting and off-site pre-conference meetings to prepare for the October 2010 conference.

The eight pre-conference trips alone cost the government $130,000, according to the GSA Inspector General’s investigation of the 2010 conference. Inspector General Brian Miller has referred his case to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation.

GSA spokesman Adam Elkington refrained from commenting on the photographs, and Neely attorney Burton also declined to comment.

The pictures suggest Neely and his wife rather enjoyed their stay at the luxurious M hotel, where the conference was ultimately held. The controversy surrounding the wasteful spending at the conference has cost GSA administration Martha Johnson her job, with other GSA officials such as Neely put on administrative leave. The 31 pictures on Deborah Neely’s Google+ page are contained in the album “M Hotel@Vegas Nov2009.”

The pictures show the Neelys enjoying their stay at the hotel, with Neely primping in the bathroom mirror, enjoying the delicious room service wares, and taking in a soak in the “spa tub.” The Inspector General’s report states that “GSA spending on conference planning was excessive, wasteful, and in some cases impermissible. To select a venue and plan the conference, GSA employees conducted two ‘scouting trips,’ five off-site planning meetings, and a “dry run.” Six of these planning events took place at the M Resort (the conference venue) itself. Travel expenses for conference planning totaled $100,405.37, and catering costs totaled over $30,000. GSA spent money on refreshment breaks during the planning meetings, which it had no authority to do, and the cost of catered meals at those meetings exceeded per diem limits.”

The GSA inspector general noted that during scouting trips, GSA “VIPs” “were shown upgraded suites that they received as a perk for GSA contracting with the M Resort” for the conference. “Loft suites have 2,400 square feet of space, two stories, multiple HD televisions and wet bars, and a going rate of $1,179 per night. Flat suites have 1,440 square feet and cost $449-$599 per night. The contract between GSA and the M Resort provided that GSA could have two loft suites for five nights each at the government rate for hotel rooms; GSA used all but one of those nights. GSA also received six flat suites for five nights each at the government room rate, and used 25 of those room-nights. The value of the discount that the M Resort offered GSA for these 40 nights was $21,540.”...snipped

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/cheers-photos-show-embattled-gsa-official-enjoying-wine-and-soak-in-spa-tub-at-m-hotel-during-pre-conference-meeting/


Video
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/gsa-hearing-top-bureaucrat-testifies-16152261


Apparently some attendees were said to have objected to the over the top waste but those objections were squashed.

I know who to fire & who to promote.

Edited by Baldo, Apr 17 2012, 06:07 PM.
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Baldo
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The GSA scandal’s powerful and powerless players

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gsa-scandal-powerful-powerless-players-181754722.html


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Toast
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I had a relative working for a large public utility several years ago. The "Office Supplies" department was reigned over by an administrator who allowed each desk x amount of paper, pens and pencils each month. If you wanted another pencil before the end of the month, you had to turn in your worn down pencil stub first.

This is the kind of person I want in each department of the government.

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kbp

Toast
Apr 17 2012, 05:07 PM
I had a relative working for a large public utility several years ago. The "Office Supplies" department was reigned over by an administrator who allowed each desk x amount of paper, pens and pencils each month. If you wanted another pencil before the end of the month, you had to turn in your worn down pencil stub first.

This is the kind of person I want in each department of the government.

Except they'd sit doing nothing until next month!
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Baldo
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House panel tells GSA, ‘Party’s over’

From the start of the House committee hearing into an excessive General Services Administration conference, it was clear that the members of Congress had a take-no-prisoners attitude.

Representatives on the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on public buildings say they had been repeatedly stonewalled in their attempt to get budget figures for the agency’s Public Buildings Service.

Now that section of GSA is at the center of a scandal, revealed in an inspector general’s report, over the 2010 conference that cost almost $823,000 for 300 people at a luxury hotel in a Las Vegas suburb. As a result of the conference, three top administrators are out of their jobs, and the acting GSA administrator told the panel that 10 career employees are on administrative leave.

All of the subcommittee’s built-up anger over the budget was vented through outrage over the spending on the Western Regions Conference.

“Let me just issue a warning,” said subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), his voice booming across the Rayburn House Office Building meeting room. “If this [spending and lack of information] continues to go on . . . I am prepared to systematically pull apart GSA to the point where we will make it a question to the American public on whether GSA is needed at all. But the wasteful spending is going to stop and the transparency is going to begin.”

Any other time, a threat to essentially decimate an agency would be partisan fighting words. But the minimal response from Democrats to Denham’s warning shows how far out of favor GSA has fallen....snipped

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-panel-tells-gsa-partys-over/2012/04/17/gIQAoGs0OT_print.html
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Toast
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Quote:
 
. But the minimal response from Democrats to Denham’s warning shows how far out of favor GSA has fallen....snipped


No, it shows how out of favor wasteful spending has become. Dems (and Reps alike) should know their jobs are on the line when they are irresponsible with the taxpayer's dollar.
.
I daresay there is just as much waste in every other department of the government, thru flagrant abuse of how funds should be spent, and duplication between departments, whether in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches.

For instance, much duplication between DOJ and DHHS in "children's advocacy", and many regional conferences sponsored by multiple government agencies for the same cause.

EVERY government agency should know: The Party Is Over!

NO :party:
Edited by Toast, Apr 18 2012, 12:53 PM.
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kbp

Toast
Apr 18 2012, 12:52 PM
Quote:
 
. But the minimal response from Democrats to Denham’s warning shows how far out of favor GSA has fallen....snipped


No, it shows how out of favor wasteful spending has become. Dems (and Reps alike) should know their jobs are on the line when they are irresponsible with the taxpayer's dollar.
.
I daresay there is just as much waste in every other department of the government, thru flagrant abuse of how funds should be spent, and duplication between departments, whether in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches.

For instance, much duplication between DOJ and DHHS in "children's advocacy", and many regional conferences sponsored by multiple government agencies for the same cause.

EVERY government agency should know: The Party Is Over!

NO :party:
All the agencies are trying to duplicate what each does. The fracking committee is an example of how it starts, the national security issues already show us where it leads to. The 'monster' keeps growing, feeding itself now that we buy our own debt ...and it's feeding that European monster too!

Before long they should just number the Departments instead of naming them in a manner like they have some separate tasks to accomplish.
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Toast
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Quote:
 
Before long they should just number the Departments instead of naming them in a manner like they have some separate tasks to accomplish.


just imagine how high those numbers would go!

(nobody would want to work for Dept. No. 666. or would they?)
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Baldo
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The real GSA scandal: job-killing Big Labor payoffs

By Michelle Malkin • April 18, 201

Stop the presses: Big-spending Democrats are finally up in arms over a federal boondoggle. Details of the U.S. General Services Administration bacchanalia get worse by the day. We’ve graduated from overpriced breakfasts in Vegas, friends-and-family junkets galore and in-house videos mocking their own profligacy to extravagant bonuses, alleged kickbacks, obstructionism and bribes — along with stolen iPods and hot tub pics.)

But the scandal is still small potatoes compared to the potential billions GSA is pouring down the Big Labor drain.

Whistleblowers and an independent inspector general investigation estimate that the GSA’s Sin City conference cost taxpayers an estimated $1 million in 2010. Washington bureaucrats squandered another $234,000 on public relations damage control. An interim GSA director announced Tuesday on Capitol Hill that 35 upcoming conferences would be canceled at a cost savings of less than $1 million. Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland vowed that GSA officials would be “made to pay back” taxpayers.

The arrogance of these civil servants is, of course, jaw-dropping. Regional Commissioner Jeff Neely, the Paris Hilton of GSA party animals, wrote in an invitation to personal friends: “We’ll get you guys a room near us, and we’ll pick up the room tab. … I know I’m bad, but as Deb and I often say, why not enjoy it while we have it and while we can. Ain’t gonna last forever.”...

...As I’ve reported previously, the linchpin is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office. It essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees. The blunt instrument used to give unions a leg up is the “project labor agreement,” which in theory sets reasonable pre-work terms and conditions. But in practice, it requires contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, to pay inflated, above-market wages and benefits, and to fork over dues money and pension funding to corrupt, cash-starved labor organizations.

These anti-competitive agreements undermine a fair bidding process on projects that locked-out, nonunion laborers are funding with their own tax dollars. And these PLAs benefit the privileged few at the expense of the vast majority: In the construction industry, 85 percent of the workforce is nonunion by choice....snipped

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/04/18/the-real-gsa-scandal-job-killing-big-labor-payoffs/


I suspect much of the "Green Energy" projects fell under this. Obama was paying off his union donors
Edited by Baldo, Apr 19 2012, 03:28 AM.
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Duke parent 2004
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In berating GSA officials for the waste of only a million dollars, the Congress has once again made an art form of hypocrisy.. This is the same body that routinely spends billions of dollars every year on needless earmark projects and that in its own perks and pensions provides its members lavish benefits that cannot be justified actuarially or matched by private companies constrained by competition and the marketplace.. Who needs to be rebuked for thinking that scandals of the GSA sort must be welcomed by our legislators, as they give our solons yet another stage on which to pretend that they themselves do not wallow in sybaritic excess at taxpayer expense?

Here is a tautology in a class with "All men are mortal":. Big government is wasteful.. Whether it's conventions without agendas in Nevada or flat-screen televisions for office canteens makes little difference.. As long as budgets allow agencies and bureaucracies to spend dollars irrespective of "outputs" or products that in the private sector must justify themselves against competitors, as long as the federal government spends trillions of dollars in excess of tax revenues, why should anyone be surprised at the occasional pimple that erupts here or there?. To work oneself into a rage over GSA shenanigans makes about as much sense as to revile a six-hundred-pound man for chewing his nails.. Size does matter, and it's the project of getting everyone chanting SHRINK the LEVIATHAN to which we should be devoting our energies.
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kbp

Duke parent 2004
Apr 19 2012, 05:48 AM
snip

...This is the same body that routinely spends billions of dollars every year on needless earmark projects and that in its own perks and pensions provides its members lavish benefits that cannot be justified actuarially or matched by private companies constrained by competition and the marketplace.

snip
Imagine a open market in which you could select the government of choice!

...wait, isn't that what has happened to many of our jobs ...companies have chosen states of less government?
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Kerri P.
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O/T but it's more wasteful spending.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/19/nih-under-fire-for-grants-toward-creation-homoerotic-website/
NIH under fire for grants toward creation of homoerotic website

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