December 7, 2021

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Previously: (11/30/21): Nuclear-weapons-oriented "innovation triangle" developments, tax changes, pitched to NM legislature
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Los Alamos to "NM Innovation Triangle:" you are maintaining a menace to public safety and are ordered to demolish your building ASAP

Dear friends --

In the previous letter we tried to bring you up to speed on the LANL-inspired plans of New Mexico Innovation Triangle, LLC (NMIT) to build mid-rise tech ghettos "villages" in Los Alamos and Santa Fe. After sending that letter it occurred to me that it may not have been obvious to some that the "high-tech" jobs NMIT is pitching have anything to do with LANL. Well, LANL's recruitment has long had an element of "bait and switch." Then-Director Sig Hecker:

It's never been terribly popular for a fresh PhD to become a nuclear weapons designer. What we've always had to do ... is to make the whole Los Alamos environment attractive to creative young physicists, chemists and mathematicians. We try to imbue the laboratory with an intellectual stimulus. That means the laboratory must resemble a university campus, with academic people and activities ... It turns out that once you get people into the laboratory, the challenges associated with the nuclear weapons programs are so immense that in the past it's not been a terrible problem to bring in good people. But it's going to be much more difficult from now on. (Lubkin, Goodwin, and Levi, 1991; emphasis added) (cited here)

Those particular technology areas are good staff magnets for LANL. Those specialties have little other market in Santa Fe.

In a recent development in its short but colorful history, NMIT has now found itself the subject of a "clean and lien" order unanimously passed by the Los Alamos County Council last week ("Council Votes To Uphold Hilltop House Clean And Lien Resolution 6-0," Los Alamos Reporter (LAR), December 4, 2021).

The property in question is the former Hilltop House motel, near the center of the town and owned by NMIT, which the County demands be removed "in due haste" and in any case by March 30, 2022. From the Los Alamos Fire Marshal's Order, here's why:

“In essence the inspection revealed that the Hilltop House structure remains unsecure for curious and/or misguided teenagers and persons without housing have entered the structure and its many nooks and crannies throughout including the higher floors. The inspection reveals a structure that is difficult to secure from entry due to the significant degradation of the windows, doors, and other entrance points due to failure to maintain the building. The inspection reveals an enormous amount of combustible material inside a structure that has no working fire suppression or fire alert system. The inspection revealed an enormous amount of mold due to moisture entering the building from a degraded roof that would likely collapse quickly in a fire. The structure contains a large vertical shaft from the ground to the roof that creates a natural chimney allowing a fire to travel quickly to the higher floors and roof. The floor and walls throughout the structure show a profound level of degradation and disrepair. The walls and floors contain a patchwork of large holes going vertically and horizontally throughout creating an almost Swiss cheese effect throughout the structure.

“Given the particulars outlined above and more particular in the report, the entire hotel structure is a rapid burning fuel package. A fire in this hotel would rapidly engulf the entire structure. This rapidly burning fuel package would most likely produce flying embers that would most likely precipitate other adjacent fires, a wildland fire event and respiratory emergencies for anyone in proximity. Any person in one of the higher floors or sequestered away in any of the nooks and crannies would likely perish in such a fire. Finally given the catastrophic fire threat the hotel poses, firefighters would not enter the structure even to save human life because of the extreme threat this would pose to the life of the firefighter because of the very high potential for structural collapse.”

As you can read in the above article, despite this NMIT appealed the Los Alamos County Fire Marshal's Order to board up and fence the property and comply with all laws and regulations pertaining to underground storage tanks.

NMIT offered no reasons as to why the Order wasn't reasonable, and still hadn't managed to board up the lower windows and doors, or get a local fencing contractor to put up a fence.

Remember (from the 11/30 letter), that the owner of NMIT, John Rizzo, bragged to the Santa Fe New Mexican about the "hundreds of millions of dollars" he was going to bring to Santa Fe ("Innovation Village aims to combine tech sector, housing in Santa Fe," Teya Vitu, SFNM, March 29, 2021). But he can't be bothered to put up a chain link fence or get some plywood to board up windows -- or even to respond to local municipal authorities, who must later approve his plans? Wow.

So far, the local newspapers (other than LAR) have not written about this. Are folks just busy, or could it have something to do with those "hundreds of millions of dollars?

We do not see, in NMIT's behavior, any indication that NMIT cares about New Mexico, or even knows how. Jobs for those who need them in this state? Not really a consideration, except as a sales tactic.

As for NMIT's grand plans for Santa Fe (see last letter), we are hearing rumors that the Webber administration and one or more as-yet-unknown city councilors will try to roll back the present height limits to accommodate NMIT and Rizzo some time in January.

Please call the Santa Fe city councilors and tell them NOT to introduce, or vote for, any roll-back of the City's height ordinance -- least of all for NMIT. This "plutonium profit food chain" monstrosity would bring a whole train of negative consequences for the city, region, and state, as previously discussed.

More soon,

Greg Mello