By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
In 2025, as in previous years, a major focus for Los Alamos County was improving economic development and assisting local businesses.
How to achieve these goals is constantly being investigated and discussed. Finding the answer seems more like solving a complicated riddle or a many-sided Rubik’s Cube. Every one from County officials to business owners to the public are taking turns twisting and turning it in hopes of making a neat, clear answer.
This year, a group of business owners formed the Los Alamos Local Business Coalition to try their hand at the economic development puzzle. Additionally, County Council formed a Council Local/Small Business Engagement Working Group, which included Councilors Ryn Herrmann, Randall Ryti and David Reagor.
The working group presented a final report on its efforts in September but that doesn’t mean the work is done. During the Dec. 2 regular council meeting, County Manager Anne Laurent provided some follow-up to issues raised in the report. She addressed some of the recommendations made in the final reports.
These included:
Make advertising available on Atomic City Transit buses both local and Bandelier National Monument routes.
Laurent said while there isn’t a current program to manage or sell advertising in the County, that doesn’t mean promoting businesses can’t be done.
For instance, she noted that the County’s website has a module that is in its final stages of being set up. Once it is, businesses can go in and enter all their information, which will be searchable. This, Laurent said, can be promoted throughout Los Alamos: visitor’s centers, the Municipal Building’s lobby. Additionally, the County’s QR code could be placed on buses. She added that there could be a year-round campaign to promote shopping locally.
“So that’s the idea, we have a current initiative, and our current schedule is to have that available in January for businesses to go in and enter their information and it is all self-managed,” Laurent said. “The County and the LACDC (Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation) have made attempts in the past to do maps and keep directories of the different businesses … it is very difficult to keep it current, up to date, so this is a way where we’re asking all the businesses, we’re giving them access and saying, ‘Help us promote you, help us keep all the information. If your hours change, you can go in and change them, if you add something to your services, you can go in and self-manage it. We’re hoping it is something that is helpful to all of our residents and visitors.”
Provide clear information on how to start a business in the County and offer a clear point of contact to help. Create an outline of who is working on economic development and what their specific roles are and how to contact them.
This year Anita Barela was hired as the Economic Development Program Manager, Laurent said. Barela has been working on the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) retail program as well as the Metropolitan Redevelopment Act (MRA) roll-out. Laurent added that County staff also have put a lot of information on the website but held off releasing it primarily because they are waiting for a report from Cities Work but directed staff to go ahead and release the information because it isn’t known when Cities Work will provide its report. Cities Work is the Institute for Justice’s consulting initiative which partners with cities to help improve economic opportunity and foster entrepreneurship. Their work is free of charge.
“We’re really looking forward to getting additional feedback on the website and we’ll be seeking some feedback, and we can continue making improvements in that area, but we do think we’ve made improvements on our website as well as our point of contact on economic development,” Laurent said.
Track the timelines for LEDA and MRA applications closely and minimize turn-around times.
Laurent said there is a tracking spreadsheet and updates will be made in the monthly County Manager’s reports. As of Dec. 2, she said 19 interests were made in the LEDA retail program but only one applied. Laurent said the hope was to get the participation agreement ordinance in front of council this calendar year, but the applicant asked to delay it due to travel plans and having some questions. Regarding the other interested parties, Laurent said Barela reached out to other applicants and issued letters regarding their status.
As far as the regular LEDA, Laurent said there is one active application that is in the final stages and should go before council in either January or February. Four other developers are talking about submitting their own LEDA applications.
“We’re all very excited to be bringing LEDAs forward,” Laurent said. “I will also say that LEDA continues to be a very challenging tool for small businesses. It’s very onerous; you have to show economic benefit and it can be a little daunting, too, as a small business … to commit to providing those jobs and maintaining them or creating some sort of economic increase and commit to that as part of the participation as well as providing the collateral.”
Track and regularly report on openings, closing and sales of local businesses, gaps and available lands for development or redevelopment.
Laurent said a community dashboard will be kicked off at the beginning of the new year, and in that dashboard there will be a business license by category metric. She added that staff are trying to glean past information about businesses, but it isn’t guaranteed to be “clean data” because some businesses forget to renew their licenses. So, Laurent said staff are trying to follow up and send out reminders. She added the LACDC is working on an inventory on commercial land.
Other considerations included in the working group’s report are:
Advocate on the state’s anti-donation clause.
Laurent said the issue isn’t so much what the County isn’t doing but what it isn’t doing that it can do.
“I think from our perspective, we feel like when we look at other communities and we’ve chased down, ‘hey, so-and-so community is doing this or so-and-so community is doing this,’ we’re not finding that we are not doing everything we can … we’re doing a lot of service agreements, we are trying very hard to be good supporters of our community,” she said. “It’s very difficult because I think when it comes down to … my assessment of what (businesses would like the County to do) … is direct grants to small businesses, that we should have a mechanism to provide direct grants to small businesses to help them make ends meet and we currently don’t have that tool available to us.”
She suggested the County officials work with legislators about what reforming the anti-donation clause looks like and how it should be defined.
Look into why the pads at Smith’s Marketplace are still not developed.
Laurent explained that Los Alamos Public Schools owns those parcels; they are leased to Smith’s. The challenge is that the parcels are small and they are not for sale, she said, adding that Columbus Capital has been interested in developing some for their tenants as Mari Mac gets developed.
Consider engaging local economic development professional groups like LACDC to help review retail LEDA applications. Also consider allowing council to see all the applications and not just the ones recommended by staff.
Laurent emphasized that the County is not turning down LEDA applicants.
“We’re not stopping anybody from submitting a full application,” she said.
The staff’s, attorney’s and finance department’s role is to make sure all the requirements are met so council can determine whether to approve the application. Laurent added that the County staff want to be flexible because every request is unique. She said LACDC was asked what role it would like and it prefers to be an advocate for the businesses and not be part of the review process.
The Business Coalition made recommendations of their own.
Here are a few of their suggestions:
Implement initiatives to increase the availability of affordable commercial space and reduce vacancies.
“…we don’t have a mechanism to rent-restrict commercial spaces,” Laurent said. “We can incentivize through LEDA, through MRA redevelopment and there may be some participation from the County in some of that but they’re all dependent on the level of participation in the negotiated agreement. There isn’t anything we can impose on an existing business unless it is through that public/private partnership (which) is negotiated as part of the public contribution of their development.”
Simplify the permitting process.
Laurent said she felt the County’s turn-around times for permits are impressive. There is a challenge of what needs to happen, why it needs to happen, how the applicant can find the people they need, she said. The County needs time to rally its resources.
Offer affordable housing for workforce on the $15 to $20 an hour pay scale.
Laurent pointed out that the County acquired two deed-restricted apartment buildings this year. Additionally, an approved new apartment complex is expected to have more than 200 deed restricted units on DP Road.
This isn’t the last discussion County staff and council will have on how to solve the economic development riddle. Council Chair Theresa Cull said she had suggested bringing this report back quarterly to see what has changed and what progress has been made. It will also be reformatted into a table or spreadsheet.