Local Couple in Midst of Firestorm Over GSA Scandal

A Mill Valley couple is caught in the crosshairs of a Congressional investigation and is garnering the kind of infamy that only the 24-hour television cycle can dish out.

Jeff and Deborah Neely, who have lived in the Alto neighborhood for nearly nine years, are the subject a firestorm of criticism across the U.S. this week for their role in a federal General Services Administration spending scandal in which they reportedly took dozens of trips on the taxpayers’ dime, including an over-the-top Las Vegas conference that cost $823,000.

That five-day event featured a professional mind reader, a clown and a $75,000 team-building exercise that involved assembling bicycles, drawing the ire of a host of late night comedians, including a recent segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Jeff Neely, a GSA regional commissioner who oversaw the event, was scheduled to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee but declined to do, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.

Since then, reports have surfaced that Deborah Neely accompanied her husband on a number of government trips, often serving as a party planner of sorts. According to the Washington Post, an investigator referred to Deborah Neely as the “first lady of Region 9” in the Pacific Rim:

She handled party arrangements, directed event planners to spend government money and arranged lodging for relatives on the GSA trip to Las Vegas in 2010, an unusual role revealed in transcripts of interviews that the agency’s inspector general’s office conducted with Jeffrey Neely, as well as in congressional hearings.

Her role as the— shows a management culture in GSA’s Pacific Rim region that not only allowed the $823,000 Las Vegas gathering for 300 people and overspending on other conferences but also openly condoned perks for managers and their family members.

Alto resident Walter Nielsen, who lives across the street from the Neelys and has known them since they moved into the neighborhood in late 2003, said he’s seen the wall-to-wall coverage of the couple.

“They’re handling it about as well as you’d expect for people in the middle of this situation,” he said. “There are two sides to every story, and the other side of theirs will come out eventually.”