Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it. Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!
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The bank was found to have committed accounting fraud and had to pay a fine. When the bank hired better managers they did a proper accounting and the bank found itself with more employees than it needed. Being cost efficient is how banks stay in business. Cutting employees will make more money available for granting loans in the future.
Come to think of it, the same can be said about the Lab.
The reason the Hilltop Inn was abandoned is because two other much larger hotels were built. Ever been in the Hilltop? The hallways were starting to slope downhill. The net for the town was a large increase in modern hotel rooms, so that's not evidence that Los Alamos is unwell.
The Conoco by the Hilltop was abandoned as were two others gas stations. Smith's built one new one. The reason those stations were forced to close is because all three were facing having to dig their gasoline tanks up and replace them with tanks that meet current environmental standards. The stations couldn't afford to do that so they closed. Even though the town is net down on gas stations, the reason is not because the town is unwell, people still buy gasoline.
The Smith's supermarket wasn't abandoned, it moved across the street. The reason the space formerly occupied by Smith's is still vacant is because the owner has put limitations on what kind of store can occupy the space - any new store can't compete with Smith's or sell merchandise that competes. Since the new Smith's is far larger than the old one and it sells a much greater variety of merchandise, that's not evidence that the town is unwell either.
The truth is that Los Alamos has been pretty stagnant for decades, it's not any more unwell than it has ever has been.
You don't have to be coy, if you're telling the truth you can come right out and say which former LANL Deputy Lab Director Karl was married to.
October 23, 2017 at 4:43 AM
The schools and the lab even have to coordinate snow delay and closing. Indeed it is a one-pony county.
That’s right, the new mode of operation for businesses in Los Alamos is simply to abandon their old structures. Just build new hotels, stores, gas stations, or McDonald’s and leave the old ones to decay in full public view. Let someone else worry about all those ghost buildings. Why does the County allow this? Do they have planners? If an old structure cannot be leased to someone else, it needs to be demolished. If appropriate, the businesses should share the cost. Again, the County has the money, enough to build Taj Mahals and grand golf course structures. It’s about misallocation of resources and poor planning. It’s not normal to have the town littered with abandoned, decaying structures.
It’s certainly wasn’t always this way, 12 years ago the streets didn’t look like a neutron bomb went off.
"As alleged in the SEC’s complaint, the fraud was directed by Trinity’s [Trinity owns LANB] former Chief Executive Officer William Enloe, former Chief Credit Officer Jill Cook, and former Senior Lending Officer Mark Pierce. The complaint also alleges that former Chief Financial Officer Daniel Bartholomew and the Vice President of Internal Audit Karl Hjelvik failed to implement sufficient internal accounting controls and failed to ensure the bank’s books and records were reasonably accurate."
These five were charged. Only these five were charged. Enloe, Bartholomew, and Hjelvik agreed to settle the SEC’s charges, litigation continues against Cook and Pierce.
So what did Jeffrey Howell have to do with this again? What was she charged with?
If being an eyesore was enough cause for the government to demolish structures, half the homes in Los Alamos would have been demolished decades ago.
Seriously, would you really ask the County Council to prevent Holiday Inn from building a nice, new hotel because the Hilltop Inn won't get demolished soon enough for you? WHAT?? How would that work? The two hotels have two different owners.
By the way, there were as many decrepit buildings in Los Alamos 25 years ago as there are now. Remember the County's Quonset huts? What an eyesore! Remember the trashy apartments that got torn down for the new municipal building?
Incidentally, who owns the Hilltop inn building?
Just because the SEC did not charge anyone on the board of directors in the LANB case, that is hardly a ringing endorsement. If they had been performing their audit oversight function correctly, then the fraud should not have occurred, or at the worst it should have been discovered and addressed in the next quarter's audit. Perhaps it was incompetence or it was laziness on the part of the directors, but the SEC did not elevate it to the level of bringing charges against them in this case.
Remember that Lay and Skilling are known for their role in the Enron fraud, but the larger failing was that the oversight audit function of Arthur Anderson led to the closure of the entire business.
Your beef isn't at all what you claim it to be.