BY JAMES WERNICKE
Los Alamos Local Business Coalition Steering Committee Member
https://coalition.losalamos.com
“The sediment deposited by this accretion of procedures can channel agency action into unproductive courses or even dam it altogether.” – Nicholas Bagley, The Procedure Fetish
Thank you to Councilor Hand for speaking up for small businesses during the June 17 economic vitality presentation. Her comments reflected what many of us have experienced firsthand: trying to launch or grow a business in Los Alamos can feel cold, bureaucratic, and demoralizing.
I’ve explored a range of brick-and-mortar business ideas with the hope of adding something valuable to our community. I don’t expect it to be simple—one in four businesses fail in the first year—but Los Alamos seems like an irrational place to start. The costs of rent and labor are excruciatingly high and the market is limited and unforgiving. It’s not exactly the kind of market analysis investors want to see. There’s also a palpable contempt for business owners by some in the community—like Mark Mitchell—who seem to think entrepreneurs aren’t giving enough back for the “privilege” of doing business here. That same hostility is felt from the local government, where just getting permission to open becomes the ultimate war of attrition on your seed capital.
What’s really frustrating is that we choose these circumstances. The cost of rent and labor are intertwined—land is the greatest expense for both commercial and residential users. We could take it down a few notches on both ends—diversifying the elitist monoculture and breathing much-needed new life into the community—if we just had the will to enact fair land use policies. To put it simply, we just need to learn how to get out of the way.
When the government becomes addicted to procedures for their own sake—fearful of stepping outside the protective hedge of endless review—it becomes an instrument of stasis rather than progress. It’s not outright prohibition, but a thousand petty delays quietly draining economic vitality out of the community.
Well-intentioned ordinances create insurmountable costs. Upgrading a building to a higher code standard or completing a lengthy review for a change-of-use permit turns an otherwise viable project into dust. Even when every box is checked, every form is filed, every meeting is held, and the collateral is put down, still nothing happens.
It’s not always the rules themselves that are the problem, but the absence of help navigating them. When every step requires hiring consultants, engaging across disconnected and contradicting departments and agencies, and enduring long, unpredictable reviews, it erodes the entrepreneurial spirit.
Councilor Hand highlighted another way well-meaning efforts can become harmful: when infrastructure projects, like the DP Road improvements, are designed without meaningful consultation with the businesses they impact. She pointed out that losing parking or access can be a severe blow, and that the County expects businesses simply to show up to a town hall after decisions have been made. As she put it, “if we say that we are pro small business, then how do we actually support small businesses?”
Los Alamos County often uses the excuse that we are a “cul-de-sac community,” as though our geography preordains mediocrity. If anything, being a “cul-de-sac community” makes it even more important not to take any business investment for granted. What convinced me to run for County Council was watching the exodus of capable entrepreneurs who went on to flourish elsewhere. The difference between Los Alamos and other thriving mountain towns like Durango, Aspen, and Salida is not geography, but mindset. As one of those former Los Alamos business owners described it, there are too many bureaucrats eager to justify their positions—or fearful of losing them—making life harder for the people who are actually trying to build something.
Other communities understand their economies depend on supporting local businesses rather than throttling them with red tape. They don’t necessarily have fewer rules, but their local officials see it as their job to help people get through them and to avoid harming them through poor communication, planning, and disregard.
I joined the Los Alamos Local Business Coalition because I hoped organized advocacy would finally move the County toward a more supportive posture. But as was clear in the June 17 presentation, the local business community continues to be an afterthought. Staff spent most of the time discussing regional megaprojects, housing funding, and tourism marketing—not practical, immediate help for small business owners trying to open or stay open. The only specific help mentioned was signage, future workshops, and some limited one-on-one outreach. There is no evidence of progress on reducing the time and cost to permit a business, improving predictability, or cutting red tape. Los Alamos County remains more interested in courting large, out-of-town developers than in supporting the businesses that are already here.
We need a culture of guidance, responsiveness, and partnership—where ordinances and procedures are applied with an understanding of their real-world impact on small businesses, and opportunities are accessible to all. Sometimes, all it takes is timely answers, consistent expectations, and the sense that someone in local government cares whether you make it to the finish line—even if you’re not able to invest $50 million in a feather for their cap.
We need more councilors willing to follow Councilor Hand’s example and ask not just which procedures have been followed, but what results have been achieved. Does all this process and paperwork actually benefit the people who live and work here? Do Los Alamos County’s ambitions serve our community, or simply sustain the bureaucracy itself?
Instead of a dashboard of things bureaucrats think will help businesses because some consultant told them so, we need leadership that actually listens to local entrepreneurs and delivers results that align with their claims to support economic vitality. Show us more locally owned, brick-and-mortar shops opening than closing, less time and cost to acquire permits and open storefronts, stronger participation in the small business workforce, rising real revenues, and a healthy commercial vacancy rate.
Los Alamos has never lacked smart, enterprising people—but it has long lacked a government willing to get out of its own way. If we want to be more than a bedroom community, it will take everyone—elected representatives, appointed leaders, and the community itself—to show up, speak out, and change it.