Town Council/Mayoral Candidate Forum Questions Submitted by the Public
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Subject: Nuclear-free
The Taos Municipal School District is partnering with the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council (NMBCTC) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to create building trades courses for Taos High School students which are designed to funnel high school graduates through its nuclear workforce development pipelines directly to LANL to work full-time jobs as paid apprentices, and after that, as well-paid journeymen construction workers at LANL. The director of the Laboratory stated in a 2020 press release, “These are stable, good-paying positions that are vital to the Laboratory.” One of the facts the director omits in the press release is that the laboratory needs our kids to build the infrastructure it requires to support and house its new industrial-scale plutonium production mission.
What is your position on Superintendent Torrez’s decision to partner with the nuclear weapons industry, and especially in light of the Town of Taos stated opposition to expanded pit production at LANL through resolution 19-22, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entering into force in Jan. 2021 making nuclear weapons illegal under international law, and Archbishop John C. Wester’s recent actions of declaring nuclear weapons to be immoral and urging difficult conversations be held on abolition and also LANL’s nuclear weapons production?
On your website under ”Taos Municipal Schools,” you state, “As a former mathematics and economics teacher at Taos High School and as a member of the Taos Municipal School Board, I have developed strong working relationships with Superintendent Torrez and the other members of the School Board.. There is a direct link between educational outcomes and economic development. It is vital that community educational institutions work collaboratively with local government and business to ensure a qualified and healthy workforce.”
The Taos Municipal School District is partnering with the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council (NMBCTC) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to create building trades courses for Taos High School students which are designed to funnel high school graduates through its nuclear workforce development pipelines directly to LANL to work full-time jobs as paid apprentices, and after that, as well-paid journeymen construction workers at LANL. The director of the Laboratory stated in a 2020 press release, “These are stable, good-paying positions that are vital to the Laboratory.” One of the inconvenient facts the director omits in the press release is that the laboratory needs our kids to build the infrastructure it requires to support and house its new industrial-scale plutonium production mission.
What is your position on Superintendent Torrez’s decision to partner with the nuclear weapons industry, and especially in light of the Town of Taos stated opposition to expanded pit production at LANL through resolution 19-22, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entering into force in Jan. 2021 making nuclear weapons illegal under international law, and Archbishop John C. Wester’s recent actions of declaring nuclear weapons to be immoral and urging difficult conversations be held on abolition and also LANL’s nuclear weapons production?
Recently New York City, among other cities, became nuclear free zones and divested from nuclear weapons. Would you do the same for Taos?
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