Anti-nuclear group sues Santa Fe for slow records response

May 6—A longtime anti-nuclear group has sued the city of Santa Fe, claiming it violated the public records law with its slow response to a request for emails about Los Alamos National Laboratory's possible plans for developing a mini-campus.

Los Alamos Study Group, which staunchly opposes the lab's nuclear weapons program, has filed a complaint in state District Court, claiming the city has failed to comply with the Inspection of Public Records Act by not providing in a timely manner a year's worth of its emails with the lab, the U.S. Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The lab floated the possibility of building a satellite campus in either Santa Fe or Bernalillo County to create workspace for its growing labor force on the Pajarito Plateau. Last year, a lab official said during a presentation the project was uncertain and awaiting the nuclear security agency to approve it.

Greg Mello, executive director of the anti-nuclear group, has criticized the lab for establishing offices in Santa Fe, contending even support services are tied to its goal to build 30 plutonium warhead triggers, or pits, a year by 2030.

A mini-campus would be part of the same mission, he said, which is why he wants to see whether email correspondence between city, lab and nuclear security officials indicates how likely Santa Fe is for the proposed complex.

"We are wondering what is taking so long," Mello said.

In January, the group asked for emails between the city and the federal agencies for the previous year, and so far have received communications sent in January and part of February in 2023, Mello said. He characterized those emails as imparting nothing significant.

"We still don't know anything, basically," he said.

City Attorney Erin McSherry said there has been no deliberate effort to stall the emails delivered to Mello. The city's small team, which handles IPRA filings, is overloaded with the high volume of requests, McSherry added.

"We did not do deliberate foot-dragging," McSherry said.

Working with the group, workers winnowed the volume of messages to 1,227 and have sent Mello three batches so far, she said.

Last year, the city received more than 8,300 records requests, and this year it's on pace to handle about 10,400, she said. That's compared with the 12,000 requests made in Albuquerque, a city with 6 1/2 times the population of Santa Fe, she said.

On top of that, the city's IPRA team is down two staffers, she added.

In an email, McSherry passed along a statement from the state Justice Department that said: "Based on our review of your response, the City appears to have fully complied with IPRA in response to this request by ultimately providing all responsive documents."

The department added the sheer volume of IPRA requests the city has received is grounds for extensions of the 15-day response time otherwise required under the law.

Still, the city has had trouble providing documents the public seeks.

Last year, it paid $300,000 to a former police officer who filed multiple lawsuits alleging the city withheld records on complaints to police internal affairs.

Although federal officials are guarded about giving specifics about the possible mini-campus, Mello said lab Director Thom Mason at a recent nuclear deterrence summit in Washington, D.C., referred to Santa Fe's south side as having room to develop a satellite campus and housing for employees.

Mason never mentioned Bernalillo or anywhere else as possibilities, Mello said, adding the emphasis on Santa Fe has piqued his curiosity even more.

The lab now leases 77,000 square feet, at Pacheco Street and St. Michael's Drive, and about about 28,000 square feet in the downtown Firestone Building, which had housed Descartes Labs, at Guadalupe and West Alameda streets.

The off-campus sites are intended both to ease congestion on the hill and to reduce commuting distance for workers, most of whom live outside Los Alamos County.

If the mini-campus gets the go-ahead, it would materialize in relatively small increments in the coming years, officials say. They won't disclose the kind of work that would be done there but have said some space might go to Albuquerque-based Sandia Laboratories, which is experiencing similar overcrowding.

Mello said he felt compelled to make the IPRA request because he couldn't trust the city to be forthcoming about real estate deals or zoning changes linked to the proposed mini-campus.

"The city is not very transparent in general," he said.