By MICHAEL WHEELERMy friend and colleague former councilor (Robert) Gibson is at it again. He is correct that local revenue comes from gross receipts taxes mainly from the LANL contract. Where he gets it wrong is that Los Alamos County was never able to afford quality of life services to our citizens except for those occasions when contracts or the LANS actually supported the community.
DOE and LANL provided less and less support to Los Alamos County over the years and as a result our local infrastructure (built during wartime with low bid materials and labor) was crumbling. Deep cuts were made in the library hours, pool hours, and other services across the board. Only when our Senator Dominici succeeded in privatizing the laboratory did the county have the resources to rebuild and replace the infrastructure.
You may remember the animal shelter, municipal building, police station, courts, electrical services, streets, etc. before 2005. Enormous effort went into bringing our community into the 21st century.
A private contractor has proven to be possibly worse than the previous public entity and certainly much more expensive for the federal government; however, it was time that the laboratory contract supported the community. Local property taxes cannot support Los Alamos (the laboratory does not pay property taxes).
Please encourage our council to continue working for the community and protect our tax revenues.