This evening during its first meeting of the new year, Los Alamos County Council elects Sara Scott to serve another year as chair and Randall Ryti to serve as vice chair. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com
Staff Report
At this evening’s first Los Alamos County Council meeting of 2020, Councilor David Izraelevitz nominated and councilors unanimously elected Sara Scott to serve another year as chair. Councilor James Robinson nominated, and council voted 5-2 to elect Randall Ryti to serve as vice chair. Councilor Antonio Maggiore nominated Vice Chair Pete Sheehey to serve as chair but failed to garner enough votes.
Scott was first elected to serve on the Los Alamos County Council in the November 2018 general election. She has lived in Los Alamos for 30 years – raising children, working at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and volunteering. Scott retired from a 24-year career at LANL and works as private consultant. At LANL she contributed to a broad range of initiatives through technical and leadership positions in the areas of nuclear energy, nuclear nonproliferation, national security, strategic program development, R&D management, facility development, international engagement and promotion of effective collaborations across multiple disciplines and organizations. She gained leadership experience as a scientist, Division Leader, and Program Director at LANL; responsibilities included budgets of more than $100 million annually, supervising more than 400 staff, diverse facility operations, and constructive engagement with federal program leaders. She received her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Iowa State and was a National Science Foundation-NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max-Plank-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, where she focused on developing new routes to intermetallic hydrogen storage materials.
Ryti also was elected to the County Council in the November 2018 general election. He has lived in Los Alamos since 1992. He came to start a small business, Neptune and Company, with four other scientists. In addition to helping lead a successful small business and raising a family in Los Alamos, Ryti has volunteered for community organizations such as the Pajarito Environmental Education Center Board and the Los Alamos County District Science Fair Committee. He was a Los Alamos County Transportation Board member from 2012-2016 (Chair from 2014-2016). He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from University of California Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in biology from University of California San Diego. Before retiring from Neptune and Company in 2018, he worked on basic and applied environmental problems, including ecological and human health risk assessments for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Hanford Site and other clients. He said he enjoyed campaigning as a first-time candidate, particularly meeting voters while knocking on doors, and is committed to getting and using community input to help make decisions while on the Council.
The Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos is the governing body of Los Alamos County and was created by the Los Alamos County Charter. The Council consists of seven members elected at large for four-year, staggered terms. Each year the Council elects a Chair and Vice Chair from within its membership.
Under the Council’s Rules, “The Council shall elect a chair and a vice chair from among its members at its first regular meeting after Jan. 1 of each year.” The Rules give further guidance on the responsibilities which include: presiding at official meetings; acting as the official spokesperson; keeping Councilors informed of events, meetings and other occasions; ensuring that Councilors are informed of significant communications directed to the chair; providing an annual state of the county message; and working on the development of the meeting agendas.
Past practice has been to put this item of election of the chair and the vice chair at the beginning of the first meeting in January. The chair from the past year will preside over the election for both the new chair and the vice chair taking nominations, then comments from councilors and calling for the roll call vote for each office. Once the election for both positions is accomplished, the new chair will then preside over the remainder of the meeting.
