Topic: GSA Chief Resigns After Blowing $823,000 in Vegas

[Pandora]

In February 2010 Barack Obama warned Americans about going to Vegas and blowing their money.

    The chief of the General Services Administration resigned, two of her top deputies were fired and four managers were placed on leave Monday amid reports of lavish spending at a conference off the Las Vegas Strip that featured a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception.

    Administrator Martha N. Johnson, in her resignation letter, acknowledged a “significant misstep” at the agency that manages real estate for the federal government. “Taxpayer dollars were squandered,” she wrote. At the start of her tenure in February 2010 she called ethics “a big issue for me.”

    Public Buildings Service chief Robert A. Peck, a fixture in the Washington area real estate community on his second stint running the department, was forced out, along with Johnson’s top adviser, Stephen Leeds. Four GSA managers who organized the four-day conference in October 2010 have been placed on adminstrative leave, officials said.

    The leadership collapse came hours before GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller released a scathing report on the $823,000 training conference, held for 300 West Coast employees at the M Resort and Casino, an opulent hotel in Henderson, Nev., just south of Las Vegas. From $130,000 in travel expenses for six scouting trips to a $2,000 party in Peck’s loft suite, event planners violated federal limits on conference spending.

Just after we paid for MO's Vegas junket, too.

[IronDioPriest]

Unacceptable. The American people cannot be expected to fund this or any other of a gazillion things this government spends our money on.

They really believe it is their money. That was ONE thing George W. Bush was really, really good at messaging - it's OUR money, not the government's. I don't hear that ringing strong and true from the voices in the GOP today.

[Libertas]

So few streetlights, so many decorations...

[Predator Don]

Ethics "a big issue for me".

I want to see this persons picture. I bet she looks like the you tuber who proclaimed obama would now pay for her every whim.

[BMG]

LINK

The General Services Administration (GSA), the federal government’s housekeeping agency, pays $13 million in annual rent for 189 rental properties that were less than 1 percent “occupied” for nearly half of last year, according to an analysis of GSA leasing inventory data by The Washington Examiner.

And GSA pays $600 million in annual rent for at least 2,000 rental properties that were less than 10 percent occupied during that time, the analysis found.

All of the properties are managed by GSA’s Public Buildings Service (PBS), which negotiates the leases and assigns the space to federal departments and agencies.

[Predator Don]

In February 2010 Barack Obama warned Americans about going to Vegas and blowing their money.

    The chief of the General Services Administration resigned, two of her top deputies were fired and four managers were placed on leave Monday amid reports of lavish spending at a conference off the Las Vegas Strip that featured a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception.

    Administrator Martha N. Johnson, in her resignation letter, acknowledged a “significant misstep” at the agency that manages real estate for the federal government. “Taxpayer dollars were squandered,” she wrote. At the start of her tenure in February 2010 she called ethics “a big issue for me.”

    Public Buildings Service chief Robert A. Peck, a fixture in the Washington area real estate community on his second stint running the department, was forced out, along with Johnson’s top adviser, Stephen Leeds. Four GSA managers who organized the four-day conference in October 2010 have been placed on adminstrative leave, officials said.

    The leadership collapse came hours before GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller released a scathing report on the $823,000 training conference, held for 300 West Coast employees at the M Resort and Casino, an opulent hotel in Henderson, Nev., just south of Las Vegas. From $130,000 in travel expenses for six scouting trips to a $2,000 party in Peck’s loft suite, event planners violated federal limits on conference spending.

Just after we paid for MO's Vegas junket, too.

They actually believed the commercial "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"......

[charlesoakwood]

Your stimulus dollars at work.

[Libertas]

I am destimulated.  But trials and executions might improve my mood... 

[charlesoakwood]

PPV

[Libertas]