“When P. Daniel Smith walked away from his job as deputy director of the National Park Service last fall, he didn’t walk back into retirement but rather into a position Interior Secretary David Bernhardt created for Smith that just happened to be based in Smith’s hometown, according to job posting records.
But it was more than two weeks after Bernhardt put Smith in the position to ‘lead NPS efforts on the 250th commemoration of our nation’s independence’ that the job opening was actually posted. And then the posting was open for just seven days.
‘The only time I have seen that happen is when they had somebody specifically in mind,’ said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. Other Park Service veterans say a job usually is posted for at least two weeks.
Francis added that typically the federal government needs to field an adequate number of candidates for a job opening, and that the ‘position should be open long enough and in a wide enough area of consideration to ensure that people from all walks of life can apply.'”
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