By SARA SCOTT
Los Alamos County Councilor

First I’d like to thank all of the community members, staff and my fellow Council members who invest their time and energy to actively engage in keeping our community the wonderful place it is to live, work, and play while taking steps to address challenges and make Los Alamos and White Rock even better in the future.

Four years ago, Council pared down more than 20 strategic priorities to seven so that we could focus efforts on key areas of interest to the community. Making progress in these priority areas that include housing, business environment, infrastructure, vacant spaces, inclusivity, social services, sustainability, open spaces, and our historic and cultural amenities often requires work and integration across county government, community organizations, Los Alamos Public Schools, and private business owners and investors. And we’ve seen that happen-here are a few examples.

To support redevelopment of both White Rock and Los Alamos in accordance with how our citizens would like the community to look and function we have just completed a multiyear process to update the County’s Development Code (often referred to as “Chapter 16”). This significant modernization of the code builds on the 2021 Downtown Master Planning efforts, the adoption of a Metropolitan Redevelopment Area for White Rock, and other community-based input. The update will support the evolution of housing and downtown areas that the community wants. We’ve hired a new Economic Development Administrator and now added another staff position to support small businesses and our broader business environment. They are working closely with investors in redevelopment of the Mari Mac center and other vacant or underutilized areas in our community.

Multiple market rate and income qualified housing projects have been completed or are nearing completion. Other concepts that could fill key needs such as workforce housing (e.g., the potential North Mesa housing project on the public school land) continue to be evaluated through collaborative processes.

Utility infrastructure received a boost of about $800,000-900,000/year when Council passed the “profit transfer ordinance” in 2020. This ordinance is accelerating progress of needed utility infrastructure through availability of increased funding and creating efficiencies in county investments by promoting a mechanism to better coordinate infrastructure projects across public works projects. So, for example, when road work is planned – these funds can be used to perform the utility work at the same time, getting the best result for our dollars and minimizing impact to citizens.

We’ve also come together to work on community concerns including the staffing and long-term viability of the obstetrics and gynecology services here in the County. This continues to be a work in progress but is critical for the health and safety of those in our community. Council also supported creation of the Racial Equity and Inclusivity Task Force to understand how we can promote inclusivity across multiple facets of County budgeting, operations and programming. The Public Health Office is now open 5 days a week as a result of County funding and infrastructure to augment New Mexico State funding for this operation.

Long-term sustainability of our community has been promoted through action to continue consideration of the nuclear energy Carbon Free Power Project for long-term base load electricity production, the inclusion of composting as part of our environmental services and chartering the Los Alamos Resiliency, Energy and Sustainability Task Force. The Task Force was charged with creating greenhouse gas reduction and climate change resiliency recommendations to Council and will help the County identify environmental responsible operational options and programs. As a result of their recommendations, the County now has a Sustainability Manager to identify, prioritize, and integrate those actions with the highest impact on our future sustainability.

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly had significant impacts on our community members, County staff, Councilors, and me personally. I mourn the loss of so many to this deadly virus in our community, county and globally. Here, as around the world, we had to change how we were able provide continuity of County operations, meetings, and business support overnight. We have worked hard on how to best identify and communicate important information regarding the progression of the pandemic and how to keep ourselves and our families safe; the County continues to contract with an epidemiologist to help provide expert advice. These efforts will certainly continue to be honed while we make good use of tools such as zoom, masking, and most importantly vaccinations as we resume many of our pre-pandemic activities. As a community we came together as we always have in response to challenges, and this was a big one. Citizens supported our businesses, vaccinations clinics, and each other.

I’ve so much appreciated the opportunity to serve the community on County Council for the past four years – I love the work and it’s been an honor and a pleasure to engage with so many amazing folks and see how many ways they are making a difference in our community. My sincere thanks and admiration go out to all of the talented and dedicated county staff, to so many able and active community volunteers, and all of the others in our town that work every day to keep Los Alamos and White Rock the special place it is and will continue to be.