Republican Candidate Gary Stradling stopped by the Post Monday to discuss his candidacy for Los Alamos County Council. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com

Staff Report

Republican Gary Stradling is running for a seat on Los Alamos County Council. He recently stopped by the Los Alamos Daily Post to answer questions about the local election.

This is part of a series of Q&As with political candidates that the Post will publish ahead of the Nov. 8 General Election.

POST: How long have you lived in Los Alamos?

STRADLING: I am a 5th generation New Mexican (see stradling4council.org/heritage). As a 9-year old child on our farm in Belen, NM, I read with excitement and wonder, a history of Los Alamos and the development of the atomic bomb. On a family trip, seeing the sign to Los Alamos (at HWY 502), I marveled at being so close, yet could not imagine working here. I am the first of my family to obtain a college degree. My dear wife, Rebecca, and I came to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 1981, as I was finishing my doctorate in plasma physics. We had three little children and the fourth (of nine) arrived almost immediately. We could not find a house to buy. At the time it was common to find only a scant handful of homes on the market. I asked a senior lab manager, who was then a county councilor: “With thousands of acres of empty land around the community, why doesn’t the county develop more housing?” His shocking answer was not that the land was unavailable, but that he liked the high rents he made on rental properties when demand far exceeded supply. His personal financial interest was in conflict with the community needs for more housing! We should have leaders who are un-conflicted in their motivations to serve the residents. 

POST: Where do you work?

STRADLING: I have worked at LANL for 40 years, doing a very interesting mix of challenging jobs. Starting with nuclear testing in Nevada, these included six years in Washington, DC, detailed from LANL to the Department of Defense (DoD), to support the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. For three of those years, I was Chairman of the 26-nation (NATO and Warsaw Pact) Open Skies Treaty Sensor Working Group in Vienna, Austria, and then in the Nuclear Forces policy organization. Later at LANL, I led the AngelFire program supplying airborne intelligence capability to the Marines during the Iraq war. When I retired from LANL, I was invited to return to Washington DC as a senior federal manager in the DoD for five years, then retired again to our beloved home in White Rock. Every Friday I volunteer for my church. I am on the board of the Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum, and am an amateur geologist.

POST: Why are you running for County Council?

STRADLING: I am running for Council primarily to provide Los Alamos County with sufficient housing and to revive our business community, by applying my career skills and experience in negotiation and working with federal bureaucracies. I am running to help the County operate better.

Los Alamos has always had a housing shortage, in spite of being surrounded by many thousands of acres of developable land, and being in the midst of more than a thousand square miles of wilderness, mountain, and forest. But, with the explosion of LANL hiring—recently 6,500 new staff were hired on top of a historical 10,000 staff base, to be followed by a planned aftershock of 5,500 more over the next three years— the need for sufficient housing has gone from a major inconvenience to a genuine crisis. This crisis is unmitigated by sufficient serious planning or preparation by DOE, LANL, or the County. Response by other cities will not reduce the impact on Los Alamos! About 12,000 people commute into the County every day, from as far away as Taos and Belen! Their commute burns a billion gallons of gas a year. They impact county infrastructure. Their ~$1 billion in paychecks are neither spent locally nor come to the County in taxes.

Our businesses have stagnated and evaporated since I arrived here 41 years ago. Properties are derelict and vacant, many businesses have left, and many of those that are still operating are barely hanging on. Staffing shortages limit business hours and services across the county.

Personnel for our essential services—like fire, police department, county staff, nurses, technicians, and teachers, etc.—cannot afford to live in Los Alamos and cannot find housing. Currently, there is a shortage in the fire department: they are choosing to take other jobs, away from Los Alamos. We must have essential services, but we truly also need a broader range of businesses.

Much of the business problem stems directly from the housing problem: For non-LANL businesses to flourish, there must be local people available to start businesses and staff them. We must have sufficient housing for those who work here—LANL and non-LANL both—and for the many additional people needed to enable local businesses. Planning for these businesses without a deep and responsive real estate market and a robust staffing market is futile!

Our housing and staffing economies both are grossly distorted by the imbalance of high demand and sparse supply. Truly affordable housing cannot exist without housing supply sufficient to meet the demand. Subsidized housing is not a solution. The root cause is the lack of vision, will, or skill of the County Council to shepherd land transfers from start to success.

Demonstrating a lack of awareness, the County sent out a booklet to all residents this summer, proudly listing a handful of housing developments over recent decades, totaling only 661 units. This is only 6% of the housing need (which I think will be around 10,000 units)! Council Chair incumbent Ryti, now running for a second term, told me on Saturday that he would allow “fewer than 1000 new residences.” Incumbent Councilor Melanee Hand, also running, just published a statement that doubled down on the failed housing development policies of the past. These incumbents, and their co-candidates, neither understand the need nor have the vision to solve this crisis. They don’t get it, and worse, they don’t know that they don’t get it.

However, the problem is multi-faceted, and is not just about housing. I hear again and again from small business owners that our County and Council are actively obstructive and make it difficult for them to emerge, to operate, to grow, or even to survive. This has been a clear pattern over decades. Many people complain about the scarcity of restaurants, but landlord action and county neglect have driven several out of the area over the past couple of years (Little Saigon and Fleur de Lis are examples). There is a strong bias towards large corporations and against local entrepreneurs. Look at the business-stifling agreement of the Council with Krogers and how quickly Starbucks went up, compared to UnQuarked!

Mine is a long-term vision of a full spectrum, vibrant community! We should have shopping, entertainment, restaurants, sports, LANL tech spin-offs, etc. We should not have to travel away from Los Alamos for shopping or for the daily activities of living! My vision is anchored in acquiring federal DOE lands adjacent to our existing communities. I believe that I have the skills, perseverance, and determination to achieve these long-attempted but never-completed land transfers.

POST: County Council requires a significant time commitment, usually 4 council meetings a month, committee meetings and other events as well as reading preparation prior to those meetings. How will this fit in with your other commitments?

STRADLING: As a retiree, I can accomplish my other commitments and also serve as a councilor. In addition to my professional experience, I have served as a Los Alamos planning and zoning commissioner. I know the rigors and requirements of study, meeting, negotiating, and engagement with the residents, and also the supporting committees, boards, and civic organizations.

POST: What do you believe is the role of the Council in our community?

STRADLING: The County Council is the representative body of the community. It is not the residents’ boss, or nanny, but their servant! It must stand with the residents, not against them! It must be attentive of the needs and desires of the residents, their livelihoods, their infrastructure and utility needs, etc. It is not for the Council to dictate special interest agendas over the general needs and desires of the community! The County is not an HOA!

The Council must have the vision (guided by broad input from the community), set the agenda (again, honoring community input), give direction consistent with that vision and agenda, and manage the county staff accordingly. It must take the initiative in accomplishing strategic objectives, like negotiating the acquisition of land to build on. It must lead out in establishing harmonious and cooperative relationships with neighbors like LANL, the Pueblos, and local cities.

When county staff errors, the Council must hold staff accountable, not cover it up. In the Sirphey/UnQuarked fiasco, the complaint was a lack of transparency on the County’s part. The incumbent Council Chair, candidate Randal Ryti, sided with apparently-misbehaving staff, then doubled down to hire outside counsel to reject an appeal, and sought to obscure the actions, issues, and facts with an egregious smoke screen of obtuse legalism. This smoke screen was roundly and emphatically rejected by the courts, who have penalized the County, require us (you) to pay attorney fees to the injured party. AND WE ARE STILL IN COURT! Before that is resolved, the County (you again) may find itself liable for millions of dollars in penalties. This was a classic example of cascading poor judgement that must not be rewarded with reelection! The Council should stand up for right and for transparency. Local businesses serve the people of Los Alamos. The County should be in the business of helping jumpstart small businesses, nurture those that are struggling, not bulldoze them off the road!

POST: Do you think you have any personal or professional relationships that could become a conflict of interest while serving as a Council member?

STRADLING: No. I own only my own home. I am not a real estate agent or property developer. I do not have any other business interests affecting the County, nor do I represent anyone who does. As a federal DoD official, I had to certify annually against any personal conflict of interest and I think that should be our standard in the County too.

POST: What is your approach to handling controversial and complicated issues?

STRADLING: As a representative of the public, a councilor must be open and above board, not secretive and obscure. Certainly they must avoid even the faintest appearance of self dealing!

As with my international Open Skies negotiating experience, I know how to:

• align with my charter and authority,
• deal with all parties with respect, integrity, and good will,
• listen to all of the sides,
• seek to understand the issues at their core,
• seek common ground,
• innovate to bypass barriers,
• take initiative, and persist to bring resolution.

POST: What skills and experience do you have that you believe would be beneficial to the position?

STRADLING: I have integrity. I am tenacious. I am focused. I work hard. I like people and want good for them. I have perspective and a long view—I think strategically of the Los Alamos 40 years in the future. I have analysis experience, project management credentials, conflict of interest credentials, negotiation skills, and experience working across US government departments: DoD, DOE, State Department, etc. I have managed large budgets and multiple levels of staff. I have been a planning and zoning commissioner in Los Alamos. I am not daunted by challenges, having been married 48 years to amazing Rebecca, with whom I have raised nine wonderful and successful children. I have accepted numerous challenging career assignments and succeeded in them. I am a skilled writer. See stradling4council.org/experience for details.

POST: What previous community involvement have you had in Los Alamos or another community?

STRADLING: In addition to having been a planning and zoning commissioner here, I have also served for decades as a Boy Scout leader in the local Troop 422, the local District Council, and in Virginia, with Wood Badge rank. I am active in my church, and have served in a wide variety of church leadership assignments over my life.

POST: Based on what you know about County government, what do you see as the top priorities?

STRADLING:

• Negotiate transfer of sufficient building tracts to the County from DOE to satisfy our demand for housing,
• Plan and develop sufficient full-spectrum housing, including senior housing,
• Exercise fiscal restraint- holding county expenditures to the same frugality of our residents,
• Listen to and follow voter direction,
• Encourage and facilitate a broad variety of community-serving business,
• Provide efficient, effective, reliable, and economical operation of utilities, roads, and transportation, including broadband,
• Provide complete and effective emergency services—police and fire,
• Enhance recreational areas and facilities for the diverse interests of the county, in cooperation with free enterprise, where possible,
• Enable appropriate social services for the full range of resident’s needs,
• Bolster medical facilities and staff to meet Los Alamos needs within the County
• Encourage free enterprise to provide many of these capabilities.