Courthouse meeting

If you attended the federal courthouse meeting at Ben Franklin, you were in for a treat. It was well attended and many people spoke. The session ended with a GSA representative, Barbara Shelton, who claimed she was from Harrisburg, promising that the decision would be "objective." There certainly is no evidence of that in the actual environmental impact report, if "objective" means defined criteria applied to all three sites. Ms. Shelton appears to be the Mid-Atlantic regional adminstrator.

Ms. Shelton's contact information is as follows:

Barbara L. Shelton
(215) 446-4900
barbara.shelton@gsa.gov

Her current position appears to be a step down from a temporary position she held earlier:

"Before being named Acting FTS Commissioner, Shelton served three years as GSA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator, where she managed the operations of FTS, FSS, and the Public Buildings Service for the seven-state Region. Before that, Ms. Shelton served as Deputy Secretary for Administration in Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry and as Deputy Secretary for Procurement in the state’s Department of General Services. She also served as an Information Technology Consultant at Philip Morris in her private-sector career."

Great - she worked for big tobacco.


And according to this news item, she was an inexperienced political hack when she was appointed acting commissioner of the new Federal Acquisition Service :

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0605/062205p1.htm