Reopen Fermilab

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AN OPEN PETITION TO ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES
TO REOPEN FERMILAB TO THE PUBLIC
FROM MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES

This letter will be submitted to the offices of Representatives Bill Foster, Delia Ramirez*, and Lauren Underwood, Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, and Mayors David Brummel and Jeff Schielke.
*Rep. Delia Ramirez added to recipient list on 8 June 2023.

Fermilab has long been an integral part of the local Illinois community, valued for its longstanding tradition of transparency and being welcoming to all. Recent changes to Fermilab's site access policies threaten this cherished tradition by affecting its ability to execute its mission and by negatively impacting its interactions with the scientific community and the general public in the local area and beyond.

We are constituents, scientists, educators, neighbors, and friends of Fermilab. We respectfully petition you to do everything in your power to revert these new access policies, which threaten Fermilab's science and education programs and Fermilab's reputation within the local community.

Local Community Members

Fermilab has been a trusted presence in the local community for decades, providing neighbors with open access to the site for educational and recreational activities, and in turn benefiting from the positive reputation it has cultivated. Members of the general public have had a front-row seat to observe the science enabled by tax-payer dollars and we have experienced a continued sense of belonging to the Fermilab community. Through this openness, we have been reassured by a sense of safety connected to all the science being conducted at the lab. Generations of students from all backgrounds have had access to tours and events at Fermilab, and we are proud that new and future scientists have emerged in our community thanks to the influence of the education and arts programs available through the lab.

Today, the general public is only permitted to access the main road, and with ID requirements that are becoming increasingly stringent, soon its doors will be closed to tourists and even to some immigrants. We can no longer drive or bike around the premises freely. The dog park, Wilson Hall with its exhibits on the top floor, and other areas are no longer generally accessible. Fishing and other activities open to the public have been canceled. These restrictions are dismantling the very features that have defined Fermilab to the public for decades. Community members, students seeking tours, and delivery drivers trying to do their job have all been turned away at the gates. Fermilab is no longer the friendly and welcoming neighbor that this community has long cherished.

Fermilab Users and Employees

Fermilab has been a beacon of scientific transparency and excellence for decades and international research collaborations hosted here have thrived. Scientists have benefited from broad freedom to innovate not only in science, but also in public engagement, work which has contributed directly to public support for our research mission. Fermilab's culture has historically encouraged openness, sharing, inclusion, and community like no other lab in the world.

The access policy changes undermine critical aspects of the scientific process as well as the basic functioning of Fermilab. Hosting research meetings, interviewing prospective employees, collaborating with scientists outside the lab, and enacting our famously impactful education programs have all been hindered. We no longer have the ability to make our open source software repositories widely accessible. Our families can no longer easily visit the lab. Educators and administrative staff have their everyday operations consumed by navigating the bureaucratic hurdles necessary to arrange the few tours that still occur. Even the ability of scientists to access individual buildings on site in order to conduct research has been limited.

Our ability to conduct world-class science is at stake, and these restrictions risk the lab's reputation in the scientific community. Most importantly, they affect our satisfaction, our quality of life, and the culture that Fermilab used to be renowned for.

It doesn't have to be this way. It never did. There are no dangers associated with visiting the parts of the lab that have previously been accessible to the public, and Fermilab does not conduct classified research that would require strict access control to the premises. Efforts to treat Fermilab as if that were the case are unjustified and negatively impact us all. Those of us on the ground performing the research know that nothing at Fermilab needs to be hidden from the public.

Members of the local community and members of the scientific community have exhausted all other recourses available to them to advocate for change. Fermilab employees and users have voiced concerns through appropriate internal channels, and members of the local community have expressed their concerns on social media and reached out individually to our elected representatives. Despite these efforts, site access restrictions have only increased and their negative impact has only grown. Given your long-time commitments to Fermilab and to the local community, we now come to you collectively to ask for your help and support.

Please do not allow the uniqueness and exceptionalism of Fermilab to be trampled by unnecessary policies that Fermilab employees and users don’t need or want. Site office policies should not be hindering the most valuable and cherished contributions of the lab to our communities. Do not allow the management of the DOE Fermilab Site Office to continue ignoring this problem until larger effects of these policies are felt in the science bottom line or until community support for the lab is further compromised.

We continue to compile signatures of support for this petition as well as testimonials of those who have been affected by these changes at www.ReopenFermilab.com. Many of us have chosen to remain anonymous on the publicly viewable version of this petition online, but a full list of signatories will be delivered to your offices directly.

We thank you for your time and for your commitment to our communities. We hope that with your leadership, Fermilab can be restored to the thriving community resource that we have known and cherished for so many years.

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AN OPEN PETITION TO ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES TO REOPEN FERMILAB TO THE PUBLIC FROM MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES

2,988 Signatures

230 Testimonials

Attention friends of Fermilab

2,988 Signatures

Justin Vasel

Rob Fine

Fernanda Psihas

Karl Warburton

Nick Battaglia

Oksana Warburton

Laura Sedory

Larry Bartoszek

[Signatory 9] Name redacted

Kellen McGee

Tim Skirvin

Michele Southerland

Robert Colucci

Eileen Berman

Timothy W Koeth

Cathy Sidwell

Steven Alder

Rene Padilla-Dieppa

David J Ifversen

Scott Raun

Susan Helwig

Joshua Rubin

Tracey Callison

Micah Groh

[Signatory 25] Name redacted

Mingcheng Gao

[Signatory 27] Name redacted

Mark Pankuch

Heather Greenwood

[Signatory 30] Name redacted

Stacey Lam

Quynh Le

John Sutherland

Mary Sutherland

Penelope J Skrzynski

Cheng-Yang Tan

Steve Henrikson

Matthew Strait

Joseph A Salerno

[Signatory 40] Name redacted

Robert Mau

Curtis R. Danner

Sam Paris

bonnie K. Jones

[Signatory 45] Name redacted

[Signatory 46] Name redacted

E K Cohen

Vahid Ranjbar

Barry Lyn-Waitsman

Andreas Jansson

Randall Erickson

Elliott McCrory

[Signatory 53] Name redacted

Shalom Waterous

Carrie Chesters

Mary Ekin

jan varey

Beverly Stephenson

Jessica Oakes

Bert Hickman

John Edwards

Patsy Sanchez

Emily Larson

Ryan Murphy

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Seth Langreck

[Signatory 67] Name redacted

Steve Vasel

[Signatory 69] Name redacted

Gray Putnam

Erik Wessing

[Signatory 72] Name redacted

Anna Heggestuen

AN OPEN PETITION TO ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES
TO REOPEN FERMILAB TO THE PUBLIC
FROM MEMBERS OF THE LOCAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES

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