BY GARY STRADLING
Republican Candidate for
Los Alamos County Council
Panic! Panic!!- Ms Nakhleh’s attack on my paragraph
My, my! The Democrat polling folks really have got their apparatus in a panic. How do they sell, business as usual?!”
Dear voters, my campaign is simple. A 40-year vision for a full-spectrum Los Alamos community—not just a LANL bedroom development.
- Acquire unused and unneeded DOE land for housing.
- Build sufficient housing on that land, for LANL workers, and for community workers for local, full-spectrum, businesses, to bring our local economy into balance.
- Sustain access to the vast open spaces around us.
- Plan and build the needed infrastructure as we go.
- Don’t turn Los Alamos into an HOA.
- Spend our resources effectively and frugally.
- Most importantly- LISTEN TO THE VOTERS!
The voters all agree. “This makes sense. I will support you.”
No wonder the weak, business as usual, overbearing, Democrat candidates are panicking. But you are not hearing from them. They are sending out their proxies to fight, marshaling a chorus of dishonest trolls on social media, trying to distract the electorate from core Los Alamos County governance issues with breathless and false accusations of political extremism. That is how you may measure panic.
My response to Ms Nakhleh’s 1000-word attack on my paragraph about infill, “Sure. I do not oppose infill development, nor do I oppose reasonable parking requirements. They are reasonable interim measures.” However, only relying on infill will be INSUFFICIENT, interminable, and piecemeal, and will clog the best parts of our town. There will be unrelenting pressure to build apartments on every lot, in every garage and shed.
Remember, it is housing sufficiency that matters. Without enough housing, the critical objective of a full-spectrum community does not happen. Our businesses continue to die and blow away. We remain a bedroom community, with guest workers commuting in. We continue to travel to Santa Fe and Albuquerque for essential living activities.
As for your assertion of “a fantasy of DOE land transfers.” Well, that “fantasy” has been on the elected, though ineffectual, Democrat representatives agenda forever! But they have not accomplished it through their business as usual approaches. I have a track record of solving this class of problems, with innovation and persistence. I know how much effort is enough, because I have been there and done that!
Voters, send me this time.
You, as voters, should be suspicious of business as usual candidates. You should be suspicious of candidates who have potential conflicts of interest with real estate development decision making. Remember, that is how we got into this mess.
Thankfully, the election is 5 days away! You can vote for me and those who will support me. Then we can go to work.