March 2, 2021

Please contact the Santa Fe City Council urging the City to leave the "Regional Coalition of LANL Communities"

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Dear friends --

We hope you are all well in every way. We are fine here.

We haven't used this New Mexico Activist Leader list in a long time now, for various reasons too boring to list. My apologies. So much has been going on we have barely kept up ourselves, let alone kept all of you "in the loop" as we should have.

All of a sudden however we do really need your immediate help, tonight or tomorrow if possible. I know that many of you are busy with the 60-day legislative session, now more than half gone, but a small investment of time right now could be decisive -- really powerful and catalytic for good.

As you can see from the two articles copied below, Santa Fe City councilors Rene Villarreal, and apparently also Signe Lindell, are questioning whether the City of Santa Fe should remain in the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC). The purposes of the RCLC -- not withstanding whatever the latest iteration of its formal purpose may be -- are to suborn local governments and political leaders, getting governments and individuals to formally identify as part of a coalition of "LANL communities," and secondarily to lobby for more money for whatever LANL does -- waste management, plutonium pit production, whatever.

In effect, local governments which are part of the RCLC automatically register their political, i.e. moral, support for whatever LANL is doing.

The RCLC has been one long fiasco since its inception. Its purpose is corrupt, and by golly that's how it turned out. It's no wonder Andrea Romero got temporarily confused about what was and was not to be done with the organization's money. Almost anybody would.

At this point a Request for Proposals for a RCLC executive director has returned zero offers. Los Alamos County, which has been the fiscal sponsor, has been uncertain about continuing with that. Funding is uncertain. It is a troubled organization.

I can testify that it is also ineffective in Washington. I have been asked more than once in so many words, "Who were those people from some "regional coalition" and why do they have such an attitude of entitlement?"

RCLC member governments "get" to contribute to support RCLC lobbying on behalf of a multibillion-dollar corporation. The real value to LANL is the use of New Mexico local government names in Washington, which shows solidarity for nuclear weapons to any doubters on key congressional committees and in the White House.

The function of the RCLC is to show that New Mexico is "all in" as a nuclear colony.

Please write the Santa Fe City Council and Mayor and ask them to end their relationship with the RCLC. We aren't sure when this will come up for a vote but it could be as soon as tomorrow, in the Quality of Life Committee meeting (agenda; it's not visibly there but it could be hidden within another item).

There's a raft of articles on the RCLC at this link. Local journalists have been all over this, thankfully.

Thank you all,

Greg

https://www.abqjournal.com/2364796/santa-fe-councilors-question-lanl-coalition-membership-ex-coalition-has-had-no-federal-funding-for-3-years-because-of-past-financial-impropriety.html

Santa Fe councilors question LANL coalition membership

By Kyle Land / Journal Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 at 12:05am

Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal

What’s the actual benefit to the city?

That was the question Santa Fe city councilors debated Monday as they considered the city’s membership in the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities.

At the center of it all was a revised Joint Powers Agreement for the coalition, which officials hope will solve some of the group’s long-standing organizational issues.

Formed in 2011, the coalition consists of elected officials from nine local governments near Los Alamos National Laboratory. The body’s website states it seeks to ensure federal decisions regarding LANL reflect local needs.

But some in Santa Fe question how beneficial membership is, especially when it costs upwards of $10,000 to join. Those concerns were highlighted at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, where councilors considered ratifying the new agreement.

“What’s troubled me … is that we remain a member of this coalition, yet we never have received any updates about accomplishments,” Councilor Renee Villarreal said.

What has come out of the body is disorganization. The coalition has had no executive director for the past six months, has no fiscal agent and has lacked federal funding for three years due to financial impropriety.

That impropriety stemmed, in part, from purchases made by former executive director Andrea Romero, such as baseball tickets, expensive dinners and alcohol. All funding for the coalition is taxpayer money.

“All of these things combined just make me very wary about our role and relationship (in the coalition),” Villarreal said.

Los Alamos County Councilor David Izraelevitz, who sits on the coalition, said the body still serves a valuable purpose to local communities.

The city’s Quality of Life Committee will vote on the agreement before it goes before the City Council at a later date.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/panel-weighs-benefits-to-lanl-communities-coalition/article_6e6ad618-7aa8-11eb-959e-b732a1e82896.html

Panel weighs benefits to LANL communities coalition

By Sean P. Thomas sthomas@sfnewmexican.com Mar 1, 2021 Updated 3 hrs ago

Santa Fe City Councilor Renee Villarreal renewed her concerns Monday about the city’s involvement in a joint powers agreement with the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities.

During a Finance Committee meeting Monday, Villarreal said she has yet to understand how the city benefits from the agreement, which calls for a $10,000 contribution.

“Why is it important we are part of this coalition?” she asked. “It’s never been clear to me about the benefits and how it holds up the values that we care about in Santa Fe.”

The city is one of nine cities, counties, towns and tribal governments that make up the regional coalition, which was established in 2011 to give communities in Northern New Mexico a more official say in decision-making pertaining to job development and cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

But controversy emerged in recent years over the organization’s spending practices.

The city now must decide whether to approve a revised agreement that shifts the group’s fiscal management away from Los Alamos County — which has served in the role since the coalition was formed.

The city previously discussed the new joint powers agreement at a Quality of Life Committee meeting in July, when Villarreal first raised questions.

That committee eventually moved the agreement forward without recommendation. On Monday, however, the Finance Committee voted unanimously to send the agreement back to Quality of Life to receive a more clear understanding of the coalition’s benefits to the city.

The coalition routinely received more than $200,000 a year in public funding — $100,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy and the other half from its member municipalities based on the number of residents who are directly employed at LANL.

In October 2019, however, the Energy Department’s inspector general recommended the federal agency seek reimbursement of up to $300,000 from the coalition, saying it had failed to properly account for its spending and citing prohibited lobbying practices.

In 2018, the New Mexico state auditor also released a report identifying issues with spending practices. The audit identified improper travel expenses involving current state Rep. Andrea Romero, a Santa Fe Democrat who previously served as the coalition’s executive director. After the audit, her contract was not renewed.

Los Alamos County Councilor and coalition board member David Izraelevitz, who attended Monday’s meeting, said current contributions to the coalition can only fund a part-time executive director, and that a request for proposals for an executive director did not yield a candidate.

Finding a new fiscal agent is “one of the issues” that the coalition needs to iron out moving forward, Izraelevitz added.

He said the coalition helps the city of Santa Fe and other communities by providing a “common voice” to federal issues surrounding the lab.

As of Monday, the city of Santa Fe and Jemez Pueblo were the last holdouts to sign the agreement. The full City Council is slated to decide on the agreement at its next meeting.

Councilor Signe Lindell asked for the last two years of coalition budgets ahead of the vote.

“I know we’re not talking about a huge amount of money, but if I could see the finances, I could see what this group is doing, and what is accomplished by it,” Lindell said.

Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth noted the Los Alamos lab recently announced it was opening an office in Santa Fe and voiced her support for participating in the coalition.

“I think they will get their house in order and we will start to see the benefits of our membership,” she said.