Tom Udall
U.S. Representative
Third Congressional District
NEWS RELEASE
U.S. Representative
Third Congressional District
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
September 6, 2007
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Representative Tom Udall, D-N.M., released the following statement on Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio’s meeting on the required planning process for a workforce restructuring scenario:
“Director Anastasio’s announcement today is a necessary planning exercise required by law. No one wants job cuts at LANL and this should not be taken as an indication that there will be. I have been assured that as the appropriations process continues the final conference report will fully fund the core mission of the lab. I continue to work against any job cuts at LANL and will continue to urge LANS to diversify its mission in order to protect the lab’s future permanence and strengthen its work force.”
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31 comments:
I guess Tom doesn't yet understand that LANS can't diversify a mission set in DC by Congress and the DOE. Maybe enough email to
marissa.padilla@mail.house.gov
asking her to explain to him about how appropriations bills work would make it clearer. Or maybe electing someone in his place who understands that appropriation bills are LAW and can't be violated is the only solution.
I will continue to discourage LANL from diversifying its mission, by keeping our FTE rates absurdly high.
Now, please join me in this soothing meditation:
Pits R Us, Pits R Us, Pits R Us.
Love,
Mikey
When northern New Mexico's economy is decimated and the idioso's in Santa Fe start feeling the crunch then Udall will be voted out. I for one will never vote agian for him. Instead of taking care of his district he is trying to undo it.
Confused,
I believe your blog identity is very appropriate. Your comment attempts to advance the misconception that Santa Fe gives a shit about LANL, and that they rely on LANL budget flow-through to remain economically robust.
The facts are that most Santa Feans would be thrilled to see LANL shut down, and that the Santa Fe economy would only be marginally affected were that to happen.
Basically, the only people who have an economic stake in LANL are those who work there, and the local merchants in Los Alamos, and, to a lesser extent, Espanola. Santa Fe can easily absorb the vacancies that would be created by a much-reduced staffing at LANL. Los Alamos and Espanola would (will) feel the pain more sharply.
10:06AM
How do you know?
10:34,
Because Santa Fe has a huge tourist economy that dwarfs whatever cash flow is derived from LANL staff spending money, paying mortgages, whatever, in Santa Fe.
Los Alamos is a one-horse company town, and Espanola is dirt poor, relying heavily on LANL for salaries and small-business largess from LANL.
That's how I know. Why don't you know these things? Do you require a mathematical proof, or citations in a scientific journal before you can perceive the obvious?
Pinky and Gussie, I think Jimbo's latest post over at The Bomb Town News Observer deserves some front billing.
http://btno.blogspot.com/
The Bomb Town News Observer - Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A palpable pall
You could feel it in Bomb Town's sole grocery store Thursday night—the withering realization that the community of Los Alamos is about to be downsized.
Just hours after the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that as much as a quarter of the workforce might find itself on the unemployment lines in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, the town already seemed to be preparing for leaner, less secure days.
For a one-industry town, Thursday's news could very well mean that the Atomic City will soon join the ranks of Flint, Mich., and other Corporate-casuality communities—where plant closings and layoffs muted the chatter of daily life and draped the mainstreets in shrouds of forced austerity.
Among bins of green bananas and aisles of dented canned goods, quiet shoppers grabbed only the necessities in a dress rehearsal of potential penury. Small groups cloistered at junctions and whispered to one another with alarm.
"Did you hear what he said?" asked an incredulous shopper.
"Twenty-five-hundred jobs? Do you think it will really be that many?" asked another.
As uncertainty swept the aisles, shoppers reconsidered their purchases and some replaced less necessary items back on the shelves. Here in Bomb Town, the ripple effect of uncertainty in its single industry will radiate out into all business sectors. Skittish residents will cut back on their spending. Local restaurants will see reduced business during the lunch and dinner hours. Realtors will be feeling the effects, and some already were wondering aloud the community's future at the first Los Alamos High School football game of the season Friday night.
On Sunday the Los Alamos Monitor ran community leaders' reactions to the news, except for the fact that no real community leaders were quoted in the story; instead, the article solicited comments from the business community and mental health practicioners. The former group remained guarded in its assessment of the situation, while the latter group hinted at possible trouble on the horizon due to the increased stress that is inevitable during times of uncertainty.
The town's elected officials were absent from the story, which is not surprising, really—rarely does this group seem to be on top of things.
And while the rest of the community prepares for downsizing, Bomb Town's County Council apparently is moving full-speed ahead with its one and only strategy for diversifying the economy: building a strip mall. While Los Alamos modifies its family budgets and makes preparations to do less shopping for at least the next year or two, Bomb Town's community leaders are making preparations to make more shopping available. It would be delicious irony, were it not so sad.
In the midst of all of this worry, Bomb Town does have one thing going for it: a sense of community. In a small town where everyone pretty much knows one another, it's hard to live lives of quiet desperation in abject isolation. We support our neighbors when they are hurting, and they support us; we rejoice in their victories, and they celebrate ours. It's a mixed blessing. We circle the wagons and rally around one another in times of crisis, but this very camaraderie makes it much harder to say goodbye if circumstances dictate.
For now, Bomb Town will tiptoe around on eggshells and begin preparations for a long, cold winter.
posted by Jimbo at Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - 0 Toxic spills
10:41 am, it doesn't require a formal proof. We are actually about to run the experiment and see what happens. Enjoy!
The post below comes from:
llnl-the-corporate-story.blogspot.com
It something for those who get RIF'ed and are less than 50 years old to consider very carefully. It appears you won't be able to obtain any retirement medical from the LLC. Have a nice day!
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Question Id#3849 published on 9/7/2007 4:40:22 PM -- ( A: If an employee leaves LLNS for any reason other than retirement, they will forfeit their retirement medical.) What this tells me is that if I get RIF'd before I have a chance to retire I lose my medical coverage no matter if I go TCP-1 or TCP-2 or even if I am inactive vested in TCP-2 at age 54 plus over 20 years of service.
Answer: If you are 54, then you are eligible for retirement. If you are laid off, then you have the option to retire and activate your retirement medical. If you do not, then yes, you would forfeit your retirement medical. This is no different than it would be under any other employer.
So, if you've worked for the LLC until you're age 49 year, 11 months and 29 days and then get laid off, your medical coverage is gone forever, and you don't get medicare until you're 65. You've accrued "nothing" for all of those years of employment, except your 410k. Want to bet in years to come you'll see a trend of people that never are allowed to reach retirement age?
I think the expression on the employees face ( above ) has nothing to do with asking for a treat. It looks more like something's being administered at the posterior end. Maybe it's his LLNS initiation ceremony, or maybe he just got his pink slip one day before reaching retirement eligibility. Either way it doesn't look like anything I want a part of. Ouch !!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
9/11/07 10:41 AM
At this point it is just your opinion. If you can provide some real numbers
you might have something. What is the annual income from tourisim per year in Sante Fe? If you say Santa Fe would lose 1/4 of the 350m per year than that is 90m year. This is for a relatively small city with about 70k people. Seems like it could have a major effect. So it looks like you do not know.
Have a nice day
12:03,
Two things:
1) You are a dickhead,
2) If you would get off your fat lazy ass you could find these things out for yourself. See
http://santafenm.gov/community-services/community-development/TIRSept2003.pdf
for an economic breakdown of Santa Fe's 2003 tourism cash flow.
Ask someone else for the 2006 numbers.
Now, now boys. No need for name calling.
12:11, the link you posted with the Santa Fe tourism economic cash flow data got truncated, so I'll repost it here (my email copy of your post contained the entire link).
Dickhead, so that you don't have to get off of your fat, lazy ass unnecessarily, I'll break the url down into little pieces below. You can ask someone to reconstruct it for you and then type it for you into your browser. Maybe they will read it to you as well.
http://santafenm.gov
/community-services
/community-development
/TIRSept2003.pdf
--Gussie
and I was under the impression LANL didn't have a daycare....
Daycare notwithstanding, we further obviate the need for Dickhead to get off his fat, lazy ass to read the report, by presenting a few highlights:
Over 11 million people visited New Mexico in 2002, providing an economic impact of $3.7 billion. The New Mexico Department of Tourism estimates that 54,000 jobs and $500 million in taxes are a direct result of tourism. Santa Fe benefits from nearly 10,000 direct industry jobs and $6 million from the city’s lodging tax. Santa Fe, which accounts for approximately 3% of New Mexico’s population, is responsible for 22% of the state’s lodging tax receipts, a figure that has increased in recent years. The Tourism Department estimates that tourism had an economic impact of $390 million on Santa Fe in 2000.
Jeez, Dickhead only asked for the same consideration that many others have asked for and received (and is required on many message boards and blogs when an assertion of fact is being made or presented): citation or reference of the source of your facts.
Blowhard & Gussie sure seemed to get a little indignant at the mere suggestion that a little credibility for the statement might be nice.
[/casual observation]
[/sarcasm]
I suspect (not a quantified fact, just speculation) that many of the 11 million people that visited New Mexico did so because it's fairly cheap to do so, in part because the northern end of the state is subsidized by DOE.
Back to Tom Udall:
Tom Udall is to Nancy Pelosi as Monica Lewinsky is to Bill Clinton. Both tried to further their careers by "other means."
Again Santa Fe has no industry.
If you knock out 350 million from the lab that is about 100 million that will come out of Santa Fe. Many staff members live in Santa Everyone in Los Alamos does most of their major purchases like cars, clothes and funiture from Santa Fe. One post said that tourism accounts for 390 million. Losing 100m is going to really really hurt.
I know this is just a personal burr under my saddle but Udall's insignia, like all the other congressional insignia's on their stationary, is very telling in how they perceive and operate in their detached-from-the-constituency way.
I know their position is one of national prestige but I wish the insignia and more importantly, their attitude, decisions and direction, would reflect a direct tie-in to the state and its constituency from which they came.
It's well known that every primary dollar of income gets recycled in the community at least 3 times. The LANL worker buys goods and services, that money pays the salary of other workers who in turn buy other goods etc. If LANL's budget is cut $350M, there really will be ~$100M removed from Santa Fe's economy - and about 700 LANL workers gone. But the impact to Santa Fe goes well beyond that, ~$300M in total, and at least 2100 additional jobs gone. More when you consider the average salary of a Santa Fe job is a lot less than a LANL job.
To 10:06/10:41 AM, tell us again how the loss of 2800 jobs in Santa Fe won't hurt. And 3/4 of the jobs lost will be non-LANL workers. As many as 10,000 jobs lost in Northern New Mexico, an economic disaster of historic proportions.
And our representative, Tom Udall, voted to do this.
I guess I'm with Dickhead here:
"Santa Fe's current economy shows signs of approaching danger."
"Santa Fe lacks business diversity making the city overly tied the fluctuations in the tourism and government sectors"
....wait, I think the one flinging the Dickhead comment is indeed the true Dickhead
Actually, he's a courageous leader who's constituients are morons, most of whom can be found criticizing him on this blog.
9/11/07 6:04 PM
You're absolutely right! ...and they all live in Santa Fe....
As far as buying cars, clothing and furniture in Santa Fe, wrong. Most cars are purchased in Abq. or elsewhere, clothes over the internet and furniture who knows.
Two of my last three major (about $9000 total) furniture purchases were made in Santa Fe. The third was made at CB Fox in Los Alamos.
There are certainly many, many cars in Los Alamos that have Santa Fe Auto Park license plate frames.
I've never been to Sam's Club, Home Depot, or Trader Joe's on a weekend without seeing at least one other labbie in the same store. Carts are usually filled to the brim, average tab is probably $200.
My Division just spent $2000 on spot award gift cards at Target in Santa Fe.
Do I need to keep going? You're kidding yourself if you don't think Los Alamos makes a huge fingerprint on the Santa Fe economy.
You're kidding yourself if you think Santa Fe doesn't want to erase that fingerprint.
1:37
"You're kidding yourself if you think Santa Fe doesn't want to erase that fingerprint.
I am sure all the people who make their
livelihood from working in Santa Fe do want to keep that fingerprint and you are kidding yourself if do not think so.
"My Division just spent $2000 on spot award gift cards at Target in Santa Fe."
Man, I need to transfer to your Division. Are you guys looking good for next year?
All the furniture I've purchased has come from Santa Fe or Albuquerque and all the appliances, computers, televisions, and vehicles from Santa Fe.
Correction: Udall is a NON-PRACTICING Mormon that just happens to be a moron. Or is that a moron that just happens to have been born into a predominately Mormon family and hasn't darkened the door of a chapel since he was very young.
His Congressional webpage identifies him as Mormon while Wikipedia adds the commentary that he is not a 'practicing' Mormon. A quick check of the biographies of his extended family reveals a varied mix of Mormon orthodoxy and lack-there-of.
Take that for what it is worth but please do not drag the blog into another Mormon conspiracy death spiral.
That is all.
Mormon, practicing or out of practice: it certainly explains his skill at speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
Wow, somebody sure has their shorts in a permanent knot.
Grow up, please.
Let me see if I get this correctly. Tom Udall voted for the draconian cuts to the LANL budget. Then he followed this up with a ill advised amendment which virtual assures us that LANL will see some type of serious cut in the resolved House-Senate budget? And LANL is in his very own district? This has to be about the most stupid politician who ever occupied a seat in the House!
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