BY DAVID REAGOR
White Rock
The Los Alamos County leadership is continuing its hostile behavior towards our small businesses. The latest round is the development of the broadband fiber optic system in the county. In the neighborhood of Quemazon the original developers were Roger Waterman and Sid Singer. They had some arrangement with Bill Cabral, well known to Los Alamos residents as the owner of Bill’s Computer Shop and the founder of Los Alamos Community Networks, to build a fiber optic system for the residents of Quemazon. This was completed with little paperwork other than a memorandum. This system was then sold to LAnet, owned by Alan Saenz, and they continue providing service today. That system has been in operation for about a quarter century and still has over 100 subscribers.
In the last few weeks, we have seen an absurd claim from the county that they actually own the LAnet conduit system under Quemazon. It is notable that no similar claim is made on the property owned by Century Link, Lumen, or Comcast. If the county did that to those large companies then they would certainly find out what large corporations with real lawyers do when mistreated. Perhaps the county expects that small businesses cannot fight back effectively. The new broadband fiber system should service the Quemazon area by acquiring the existing system at a reasonable price, and then just replacing the old multimode fiber technology with new single-mode fiber in the same conduit. Then incorporate the whole neighborhood into the new county-wide broadband system.
We have seen many previous and sometimes ongoing examples of abuse of small businesses by the county government. It is clear that we need new leadership dedicated to a pro-business attitude. I am asking any local leaders, Republicans or otherwise, to sign up for the County Council elections this year. The deadline is Tuesday March 10, the only day to sign-up for the fall council election.
Contact David Reagor at 505-660-1867 or DavidReagor@gmail.com to participate.
Editor’s note: The contents of this letter to the editor have not been fact-checked.