Editor,

Los Alamos County (LAC) has less than 30 days left in the 90-day due diligence period to decide whether or not to purchase the CB Fox and Reel Deal buildings.  It shouldn’t take more than a day to figure out that this is a terrible idea. 

Since the County Council doesn’t know what to do with the CB Fox and Reel Deal buildings if they do purchase them, LAC hired a consultant to propose different options for the buildings.  Some of the suggestions are laughable: for example, convert part of CB Fox back into a theatre.  Remember, Reel Deal is already a theatre!  For symmetry, would we then convert Reel Deal to a department store?  Even before the pandemic movie theatres were going out of business, and now a consultant is actually proposing a new one? 

For this kind of advice, LAC spent $50,000 (reminds me of all the wasted money on consultants who proposed “Live Exponentially” or the ones who wanted roundabouts at every intersection on Trinity Drive)?   Where does it stop?  If the County Council decides to buy all the empty buildings in LAC, it would take tens of millions of dollars. Just this week it was announced that 14 businesses in Los Alamos county have closed down in the last year.  Will LAC buy all of those empty buildings also?  Furthermore, LAC gave property worth more than $1.8 million to an out-of-state developer to build a Marriott Hotel at the end of 20th Street, which could very well result in one or more of our existing hotels and restaurants going out of business.

Please end this foolishness now before the $50,000 already spent will be a drop in the bucket!

R. Wayne Hardie