By DIMAS M. CHAVEZI am a former resident of Los Alamos. Moved there with my parent in August 1943 and went on to attend school 1-12 finishing in 1955. I worked at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (as it was known back then) as a full time employee, summer student, and later under the Harold Agnew, and Don Kerr administration as the Employee Relations Manager.
When Los Alamos was still a closed community we were provided with quality security by the Blue Uniformed Security Guard Force, a branch of AEC. When Los Alamos became an incorporated community the city officials were informed that the county had to elect a County Sheriff as specified in New Mexico State Law 34-7-2 dating back to 1852 requiring each New Mexico county to elect a Sheriff and Probate Judge.
It was during these early years of elected sheriff’s that a flamboyant gentlemen by the name Louie Rojas became the extraordinare and self perpetuating sheriff for Los Alamos County. Louie was an employee of Zia Company where he worked as an Iron Worker, and when he carried out his Sheriff duties, he took his own earned time to attend to the office of Sheriff.
He performed this duty well as he and the Chief of Police for Los Alamos, who at the at that time was Mr. Umberhein, had a well orchestrated and coordinated joint effort in making this arrangement fully operational without it being a duplication of effort. Louie did a great job, along with his deputized personnel, but this could not have been accomplished without the coordinated efforts between the Sheriff and the Los Alamos County Police.
I have been away from Los Alamos for many years, but never lost my love for that special community high on the Pajarito Mountains, so I continue to view what is going on in my old community by reading the Los Alamos Daily and Los Alamos Monitor, and I chuckle at this current issue that has developed between the Sheriff’s Office and the local Police Department.
I just read an interesting and most revealing article by Mr. George Chandler, an Attorney in Los Alamos, on the legal issues surrounding this topic. I have no idea what initially generated the differences between the Sheriff’s Office and the County Police Department, but it seems that the two are on a direct collision course.
I served on the first Personnel Board for Los Alamos County, that was chaired by Delbert Sundberg, and we had our fair share of new issues that sprouted on a frequent basis, but we worked together to settle these disputes. The same can and must be done with this current issue before it soars out of control, and creates vulnerabilities in the arena of security, a hot and important issue in today’s world.