BY MARK MITCHELL
Los Alamos
Editor’s note: The Los Alamos Reporter has not fact-checked the contents of this letter.
What do you call someone who thinks that the government should support them but not others?
This is the response that I received, generated by AI: “The most appropriate term will depend on the specific context and the intended meaning. If the focus is on the contradiction between their claims and actions, hypocrite might be suitable. If the emphasis is on their focus on personal gain, self-centered could be used. Selective socialism could be used to describe the underlying political stance of favoring support for specific groups while opposing it for others.”
On June 26, 2025, the owner of Boomerang Consignment and Gaia Gifts, Anna Dillane, wrote a letter editorial addressed to the Los Alamos County Council, (https://losalamosreporter.com/2025/06/26/lte-concerned-and-frustrated/). In it she states that she is deeply frustrated with the lack of any measurable progress regarding economic development in Los Alamos County. From my reading, what I really think she is trying to convey is that she is deeply frustrated that more public funds are not being used to support hers and other local for profit businesses in Los Alamos. According to Dillane, $13 million of public money is earmarked for economic development by the Los Alamos County Government this year. So far, of that $13 million, local businesses only get a cursory mention in printed pamphlets costing a mere $60,000sixty and inclusion in poorly developed websites. According to Dillane, she asked for much more support than this.
Now, on February 6, 2024, the Los Alamos County Council considered raising the local minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. However, a motion to implement this rise incrementally over time was defeated 4 to 3. The four county council members that voted against raising the
minimum wage were Theresa Cull, Melanee Hand, Keith Lepsch, and David Reagor.
According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/35028, the the minimum living wage of a single wage earner in Los Alamos County having no children is
$23.92 per hour. Currently, established at the state level, the minimum wage in Los Alamos
County is $12.00 per hour. This rate falls well short of a living wage in Los Alamos County. Also
according to this calculator, the living wage of a two wage earner family in Los Alamos County
having no children is $16.95 per hour, with both members working, which again falls short of a
living wage.
In the months leading up to this vote, several letters were written to the County Council sharing the writers’ views on raising the minimum wage. One such instance was an email from Anna Dillane dated February 6, 2024, in which she wrote,“ 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. Frankly, it is offensive to me that the Los Alamos County Council thinks they have any thing (sic) to tell me about running my business.”
So, what label would you use for someone who thinks that the government should support their interests but not the interests of others?
Lastly, for added perspective, $13 million is enough money to raise the hourly wage of 74 full-time employees from $12.00 per hour to $15.00 per hour for a period of more than 20 years, even after multiplying the change in base pay by a factor of 1.4 in order to account for Social Security tax, Medicare tax, Federal Unemployment, etc.