BY ANNA DILLANE
Boomerang Consignment and Gaia Gifts
Community member
Honorable County Council,
I am writing to express my deep frustration with a lack of any measurable progress in economic development in Los Alamos County – despite the investment of at least $13 million this year.
I write this letter as a local business owner and a community member. While I serve on the steering committee for the Los Alamos Local Business Coalition, I represent only myself with this opinion.
At the County Council work session on June 17, staff presented reports outlining their efforts toward economic vitality and economic development. Those big words mean how is business doing in Los Alamos? As one of the only brick and mortar retail gift stores in this town, I can tell you, I am suffering. You wouldn’t know that from staff reports. As staff knows, tourism is down due to national and global politics, and tourists provide 30 to 40% of my business’s revenue. So, I needed help. A few months ago I began meeting with staff trying to get County sponsored tourism to include a focus on local business.
$13 million a year is being spent on economic development by Los Alamos County. Why is it not inclusive of local business? $60,000 in printed pamphlets with cursory mention of local business and restaurants. Websites where you have to click deeper and deeper to find the sad list of local business and restaurants. Visitor centers that look like museums (White Rock) rather than information centers where visitors can learn all about the local businesses, restaurants events AND attractions. I asked for more business representation at all of these locations. I asked for advertising for local businesses/restaurants to be put at bus stops and to be featured on the tourist buses to Bandelier National Monument. I asked for help making rack cards for local businesses and for increased rack card displays at the visitor centers and around town. I asked for dedicated bulletin boards at both visitor centers- one for restaurants, one for brick and mortar retail to highlight local offerings/events for tourists. I took hours out of my life to volunteer to come up with ways the County could support local business with some of that $13 million budget. I took time to volunteer to do the job that people at the County are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. And, to my knowledge, I was ignored. None of my ideas are actually being implemented. Or if they are being implemented, why aren’t I involved? Why don’t I know? I asked repeatedly to be included in the discussions and the plans?
What measurable effects are County tourism initiatives actually having? I know that these are good people doing their best. But…
It appears to me that there is a lack of accountability within the County. It starts with you County Council. You have to ask the right questions and hold the County Manager accountable for measurable results. I applaud Councilor Melanee Hand for asking really good questions at that working group. Unfortunately she was ignored. Her questions were not given the time and attention they should have been. As a Council , If you aren’t seeing measurable results then the job isn’t being done. It isn’t enough to stand up there and talk about pretty ideas and say over and over that we’re working on LEDA program. We need accountability. Why is there not already a LEDA program in place? Why don’t we have a list of 15 businesses that have been funded and are now thriving because of LEDA funds?
In November of 2024, I began working with the Los Alamos local Business Coalition to try to improve conditions for local businesses. We have been meeting weekly and holding public forums and writing letters and basically hitting our head against the wall trying to improve the environment for all local business. We have met repeatedly with staff presenting our concerns and our ideas. We saw none of them reflected in staff reports last week. We asked staff for monthly meetings to work collaboratively to solve local issues. That has not happened. We have held public forums to assess all of the County plans that have been created and paid for. Overwhelmingly, these plans were seen as ineffective.
I asked you, I beg you. Please, prioritize accountability in local government. I understand that it is not your job to question every statement made by every staff member. That is the County Manager’s job. So when you are getting staff reports that do not include MEASURABLE RESULTS from $13 million budgets, who is accountable for that? What consequence is there for that $13 million of taxpayer money?
Please restore my confidence in local government. Please hold someone accountable for 13 million dollars.