BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
This is the second part of a series on the opinions of candidates for Los Alamos County Council that they voiced during the September 29 League of Women Voters Candidate Forum online. Responses to questions are presented in the order in which they were given.
Los Alamos is a small county in an arid region. How much can the county’s population grow without sacrificing quality of life?
Reginald Page – Republican
I believe the county can grow if we currently use the resources we have in town and using some of the spaces that are available right now such as the plan to put housing up near the Middle School and also use some of our downtown resources in providing the ability for the owners of those businesses or those stores downtown to be able to put housing above those. I believe there’s a chance for expansion also working with the Lab; the long-term goal would be working with the Lab in trying to acquire additional land to put housing on. On the short-term goal, it’s like I stated before, but with the long-term goal I think we need to work with the Lab itself in trying to acquire some additional land to put housing on.
Gary Stradling – Republican
Los Alamos is a wonderful place. It’s a much nicer place than areas like Tucson or Phoenix or Las Vegas and we have lots and lots of wonderful natural resources around us and a lot of land. It shocks me when somebody says, “Well, where do we build?” I say, “Look around. We’re surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres – much of it recreational but much of it not. We have a lot of area that we can put houses in and it’s a matter of persuading the folks who have those resources, who own those resources, to transfer them to the county. And then we have to do the development that brings balance, uses water wisely, that has the roadways and the utilities and the new businesses. So I could see our community being a vibrant, dynamic place, 10 years, 15 years, 40 years in the future. I think it’s quite exciting.
Melanee Hand – Democrat
I believe that based on my discussions on the Federal Legislative Committee currently as I’m serving on county council that we need to work more regionally, that the amount of growth that we are trying to achieve to accommodate the Laboratory is also going to affect an awful lot of our other services which means that infrastructure, roads, parking, etc. will be impacted. So it can cause a lot of different issues that we’re maybe not considering right now. I believe that we need to infill the vacant blighted areas and possibly use those as mixed use spaces for high-density housing and shops and other retail. We’re already doing this. These decisions are already being made on council and I would want to continue to pursue that and I guess my priority is to really preserve the quality of life of our current residents.
Suzie Havemann – Democrat
I think we also need to preserve quality of life for our current residents because that also then means supporting our employers – the big one across the bridge and small ones here in town which includes our small businesses, UNM-LA, our hospital and the schools. And to have a vibrant community and maintain a quality of life I believe we do need to add more housing. At what point is there a threshold for where the population will be at a tipping point, I’m not yet sure what that would be but clearly we need to account for the capacity of our schools, the transportation and traffic issues and of course our utilities and our natural resources including water. I think it also includes thinking about how we’re going to provide power and electricity as we try to transition to a net zero community and firming up our renewable resources so that we can continue to support a vibrant community. I would want the new housing to be as much as possible downtown, infill downtown and White Rock where we’ve got higher density that provides opportunities for newcomers, young people and retirees who would like to stay in town.
Theresa Cull – Democrat
I’ve heard numbers like the county could handle up to 25,000 without significant encroachment on our open spaces and the spaces that we currently value like the stables and the canyon areas. Also without significant cost to our infrastructure. We can do some upgrades to infrastructure to our schools to probably handle within a reasonable amount money up to about 25,000 people. I’m opposed to developing in our open spaces. In fact I think we should be expanding our open spaces and making sure that they are appropriately designated so that we don’t develop those open spaces. So 25,000 is my answer and I wouldn’t exceed that, so I think supporting the Lab in a regional development is a reasonable path forward.
Randall Ryti – Democrat
I think we have to understand what the quality of life is and I think a lot of people do really appreciate the outdoor activities we have here in Los Alamos County. When they did a survey to see what kinds of things people liked about Los Alamos, about a quarter of the people said something that was either directly or indirectly related to hiking and trails, other things that were liked were views and scenery so I think people enjoy and like our open spaces here and that’s why I stated in my opening statement that I’m for protecting open spaces. I’m for redevelopment as opposed to trying to build greenfields. That’s kind of part of it and I think in terms of the number of people, I don’t think I have a really specific number but I know from he studies we did for the downtown plans it was in the order of some hundreds of units that could be developed. As we see with the development, it takes an amount of time to develop things in Los Alamos County so I don’t have a specific number but I think it’s really important to make sure that we protect open spaces and other assets to quality of life as we’re going forward.
James Wernicke – Libertarian
I guess it depends on what quality of life means to you. For me it’s about having things for my kids to do and to have that we need workers that can live here. We can’t afford to have workers that commute every day. I want restaurants and I want things that my kids can go to. I also want better medical care in this town. Those of you that know me know why I need medical care and right now, it’s like going to get a physical is like a three-month wait and that’s because doctors don’t want to live here because there’s nothing that appeals to them and they can go live up in Denver. Things like that. So we’re already sacrificing quality of life by not having housing. I did some measuring and if you estimate with a good plan you can get about 100 units an acre, The Smith’s area – the whole area there is about nine acres, so that’s 900 units theoretically and In White Rock where the MRA area is so right there is another nine acres so right there is 1800 units without sacrificing open space. Of course you’re going to have to address the increased traffic so I hope we can think about doing more pedestrian and bike kind stuff. There’s no way to build bigger roads here. And I know I’m going to piss off the golfers with this one but I’m totally not against developing housing on the golf course. Sorry guys, I want you to have your thing but housing I think is the priority right now.
Before filing for office, how many council meetings did you attend in the last two years?
Gary Stradling – Republican
I have been very busy. I was in Washington, DC doing another job before I came back to the county. I did attend a council meeting in which I offered myself as candidate for a vacancy and was rejected. Somebody with much less experience was selected who was more in alignment with the majority of the council and so I did not attend a lot. I was busy with many other things, but I have been attending council quite regularly, usually by video.
Melanee Hand – Democrat
I can tell you that I’ve been attending a lot of county council meetings since the end of January – a lot of meetings. Before I was on county council I was and I still am the president of the Los Alamos Mountaineers, a non-profit organization in town that just recently celebrated their 70th anniversary. So I’ve been the president for the last two years and the vice president for the year before that and it just so happens that all their meetings – the board meetings and their club meetings are all on Tuesday nights so I was unable to attend a lot of them until I became a county councilor.
Suzie Havemann – Democrat
In the last two years before declaring for county councilor candidacy, I attended the meeting or meetings that were talking about redevelopment of downtown and the proposals related to CB Fox and the Reel Deal Theater and there were different options and so I participated in those. I worked at Clement & Benner, I worked at the movie theater when I was in high school and as a past chamber of commerce director so I really care about our downtown a lot. I applied for and was appointed to the Resiliency, Energy and Sustainability Task Force so really anything in that lane about our utility sources and environmental issues, the landfill composting, recycling, how we handle our waste. I always care about those issues and have always tuned in when I can. Once I was appointed to the board I had really bad mountain biking accident and had to resign six months in so I missed being able to finish that out but I did of course listen in when that great RES Task Force made its presentations to the council. Before the pandemic, I participated quite a bit and when I was the head of the chamber of commerce and as a realtor I actually presented to county council so I’ve kind of paid attention in that way for a few decades now.
Theresa Cull – Democrat
It’s not because I’m old, but I can only recall one time that I attended a county council meeting and it was because I was supporting Dragonfly Playhouse and their petition for a special use permit. Actually, that wasn’t even a county council meeting that was a committee meeting. Let me just say zero and I suspect that I am very much like the majority of the community here. If you have attended those meetings – they’re pretty painful, so I’m not really sure I’d recommend people attend those meetings but there has to be a way that you find out and that you can find out relatively easy what is happening in this community and I don’t really feel like there’s that venue currently. One of the things I would do as a county council is figure out a way to keep people informed without them having to attend the county council meetings.
Randall Ryti – Democrat
I think I might have been absent for one. When I’m absent for a meeting I’ll watch it later and I do take exception to the meetings being kind of tedious but I forgot we have to have our own opinions. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on at county council meeting. I would encourage everyone to attend all of them. And if they like reading a synopsis, that’s good too. We do work on that so we have had some new initiatives to have some better synopses of council meetings.
James Wernicke – Libertarian
The only council meeting I remember seeing was on the mountain bike trails. I’m not sure if that was in the last two years. But since running for candidate I’ve attended either online or in person one or two a month. I kind of have to agree with Ms. Cull that it is a little bit tedious. I would love to see council meetings shrunk down from four hours to one hour but I know everyone needs to say their piece. And I’ve gotten involved on the personnel board so I’m getting involved with the county that way. Really though, I’m a parent, I have two kids, I have a wife, I want to spend my life paying attention to them. I know that most working class people probably want to do the same and enjoy the community and not be stuck for their Tuesday evenings. Maire – I can feel your eyes judging me right now.
Reginald Page – Republican
Up until recently in putting in my candidacy to run for county council, I haven’t been in too many. Lately I’ve been watching the video, just listening and reading the meeting notice because personally I think they need to be shortened down myself. Four hours, I don’t know, I work at the Lab and I’m in meetings from 7 a.m. in the morning until 5 p.m. in the afternoon, roughly all day long. Having those four-hour meetings is kind of tough, especially like James – got a family and kids and so trying to pay attention to them but I have been going back and reviewing what’s been said particularly to do with our utilities department and housing and small business and some of the things that’s been going on, particularly with small businesses in town and the issues they’re having.