May 6 — A longtime anti-nuclear group sued the city of Santa Fe, alleging it violated public records law with its slow response to a request for emails about Los Alamos National Laboratory’s possible plans to develop a minicampi.
The Los Alamos Study Group, which strongly opposes the laboratory’s nuclear weapons program, filed a complaint in state District Court alleging that the city failed to comply with the Public Records Inspection Act by failing to timely provide the equivalent of one year of your emails. with the laboratory, the US Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The lab has suggested the possibility of building a satellite campus in Santa Fe or Bernalillo County to create workspace for its growing workforce on the Pajarito Plateau. Last year, a lab official said during a presentation that the project was uncertain and awaiting approval from the nuclear safety agency.
Greg Mello, executive director of the anti-nuclear group, criticized the lab for establishing offices in Santa Fe, arguing that even support services are tied to its goal of building 30 plutonium warhead triggers, or pits, per year by 2030.
A mini-campus would be part of the same mission, he said, which is why he wants to see if email correspondence between city, laboratory and nuclear safety officials indicates the likelihood of Santa Fe being the proposed complex.
“We’re wondering why it’s taking so long,” Mello said.
In January, the group requested emails between city hall and federal agencies for the previous year, and has so far received communications sent in January and part of February 2023, Mello said. He characterized these emails as conveying nothing of significance.
“We still don’t know anything, basically,” he said.
City Attorney Erin McSherry said there was no deliberate effort to delay the emails delivered to Mello. The city’s small team, which handles IPRA records, is overwhelmed by the high volume of requests, McSherry added.
“We didn’t deliberately drag our feet,” McSherry said.
Working with the group, workers have reduced the volume of messages to 1,227 and sent three batches to Mello so far, she said.
Last year, the city received more than 8,300 records requests and this year is on track to fulfill about 10,400, she said. That compares to 12,000 orders placed in Albuquerque, a city with 6.5 times the population of Santa Fe, she said.
Additionally, the city’s IPRA team is short two employees, she added.
In an email, McSherry relayed a statement from the state Department of Justice that said: “Based on our review of your response, the city appears to have fully complied with IPRA in response to this request, ultimately providing all responsive documents.”
The department added that the high volume of IPRA requests the city has received is grounds for extensions of the 15-day response time required by law.
Still, the city has had difficulty providing the documents the public is looking for.
Last year, it paid $300,000 to a former police officer who filed several lawsuits alleging the city withheld records of complaints to police internal affairs.
While federal officials are cautious about providing details about the possible mini-campus, Mello said the lab’s director, Thom Mason, at a recent nuclear deterrence summit in Washington, D.C., referred to the south side of Santa Fe as having space for develop a satellite campus and staff housing. .
Mason never mentioned Bernalillo or anywhere else as a possibility, Mello said, adding that the emphasis on Santa Fe further piqued his curiosity.
The lab now rents 77,000 square feet, at Pacheco Street and St. Michael’s Drive, and about 28,000 square feet in the downtown Firestone Building, which housed Descartes Labs, at Guadalupe and West Alameda streets.
The off-campus locations are intended to alleviate congestion on the hill and reduce commuting distance for workers, most of whom live outside of Los Alamos County.
If the mini-campus is approved, it would materialize in relatively small increments over the next few years, officials say. They did not reveal the type of work that would be done there, but said some space could go to Albuquerque-based Sandia Laboratories, which is facing similar overcrowding.
Mello said he felt compelled to make the IPRA request because he couldn’t trust the city to be open about real estate deals or zoning changes tied to the proposed mini-campus.
“The city is not very transparent in general,” he said.
