BY ANNA DILLANE
Owner
Boomerang Consignment & Gaia Gifts

I do not have time to attend meetings to voice my opinion about raising the minimum wage in Los Alamos County. As one of the few retail business owners in this town, I am very busy just trying to run my business and survive with very little help from the County or the Council.

I am opposed to raising the minimum wage in Los Alamos county for either students or non-students. The competitive job market drives what I offer as a starting wage. I absolutely do not need Los Alamos County Council to tell me what I need to be paying my employees. Finding employees and retaining employees is hard enough without an added burden from a council that does little to support my business as is.

We live in a time when most businesses haven’t been fully staffed for years. I have literally been trying to hire for multiple positions for years . I offer the best wage I can and I try to create the most healthy and supportive work environment possible.

Frankly, it is offensive to me that the Los Alamos County Council thinks they have any thing to tell me about running my business.

 I strongly believe that your time would be better served finding out what’s happening with the millions of dollars in COVID funding that should have gone to local businesses. If the funding itself has been exhausted (and if so, who got it?), where is the interest that accrued during the literal years that the funding wasn’t distributed? How many businesses had to close their doors permanently because that funding wasn’t made available in a timely method? Use your time researching that and finding out why Los Alamos County has dragged their feet for literal years rather than trying to help businesses. 

Also, why hasn’t LEDA funding then extended to the new SALA Center?? 

What are the employees at the county who are tasked with helping local businesses actually doing for those high salaries? What measurement of job performance is being implemented to prove that they are doing anything to help local business? If the County is considering implementing a law that affects all local businesses, why haven’t we had contact with these supposed liaisons about this issue especially?

Thank you for taking the time to read this,