Española wants share of LANL taxes

Española Mayor Joseph Maestas estimates that about $90 million a year in gross-receipts tax will eventually flow into the state from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

And he wants some of that money for his city and other Northern New Mexico governments. Already about $40 million would go to Los Alamos County, whose officials say they want to invest some in regional projects, leaving an annual $50 million pot of state money that Maestas wants to access.

Maestas on Wednesday presented to the Santa Fe City Council his plan to lobby the state for about a $20 million cut that would be shared by area governments.

The city of Santa Fe would stand to receive a bit less than $3 million, while Española would get about $12.5 million under the proposal, said Maestas, who worked on it with area governments and officials, including Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and Councilor Miguel Chavez. But the Santa Fe councilors must still agree on what they would want out of such a deal.

The potential windfall comes from the lab's change in management from the tax-exempt University of California to the for-profit management consortium Los Alamos National Security LLC. The change opened the lab to gross-receipts taxes.

Maestas said the $20 million request was just a "bite of the apple," and requests would be larger during subsequent years. The funds, he said, would be used for regionwide economic development initiatives.

About $200,000 would be used for a regional telecommunications study and regional economic development plan. But the list of initiatives presented Wednesday also included surface-water projects in Española and expanding the airports in Santa Fe and Ohkay Owingeh.

The contents of the list -- which excluded job training or small business funding -- seemed heavy on infrastructure expenditures, prompting Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger to question the intent of Maestas plan.

"I would hate to see this become another method of funding for infrastructure projects," said Wurzburger, a major proponent of economic development in the city. "I think there are unique things that can be done in economic development."

Maestas said proposals in subsequent years would include more money for programs.

"They're primarily infrastructure because I think we need to avoid funding programs," Maestas said of the proposals laid out Wednesday. "Programs are more susceptible to failure sometimes and very high maintenance and need monitoring."

Maestas said the change in LANL's tax status hasn't been all beneficial since tax obligations have led to the loss of hundreds of contract jobs, spurring a need to seek federal assistance to mitigate job losses.

In the long run, Maestas said, he wants Northern New Mexico -- particularly Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties -- to develop economies that are less dependent on the federal government.

Contact Henry M. Lopez at 995-3815 or hlopez@sfnewmexican.com.