An unidentified National Park Service superintendent liked his agency vehicle so much that he maneuvered things to have the vehicle put up for public auction as excess property and then placed the winning bid for the rig, according to an investigation.
The probe by the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General "found that the superintendent was involved in several discussions related to excessing the vehicle and subsequently was the approving official on the report of survey that recommended the vehicle be turned in and put up for auction. The superintendent subsequently purchased the vehicle as the winning bidder at a public auction administered by GSA."
"Given his personal knowledge and history with the vehicle, which included personally driving the vehicle, we determined that the superintendent violated NPS policy, which prohibits certain employees from purchasing Government property," the investigators wrote in their report of the incident. "We also found that the superintendent’s purchase of the vehicle violated federal ethics regulations by creating the appearance of a conflict of interest."
The superintendent, they added, claimed to be unaware of the policy and regulatory prohibitions.
The publicly released report on the matter did not say whether the superintendent was disciplined.
Comments
Unfortunately, a generation after Nixon sank Civil Service and its strict exams, and the NPS and other agencies began to hire and promote politcally (or semi-politically) the Service has sunk down, in some cases to the level Mather found it in 1915. He held a conference of NPS Superintendents that year (at Berkeley), laid down the law, and half of the old boys quit. And here we are, back there again.
One of the most unethical people (and unqualified) people I ever worked with anywhere, was promoted to Superintendent. Maybe this is him?
We love the National Parks and we want to love the people who take care of them for us. But here we go again with not just an ethics issue but a lack of detail in reporting it to the public. I suppose we should be grateful this is investigated or announced at all. The name of that superintendant should be in the lead paragraph of the IG report, not completely hidden. He should be making a public statement of (presumably) apology. That's how you discourage unethical behavior in the future, by embarrassment and/or other penalty. We are left, in the absence of facts, to assume that this person was NOT disciplined (could he be driving the vehicle right now?) We can at least look forward to the details of this matter leaking out eventually.