BY RICHARD SKOLNIK
White Rock

I appreciate very much James Wernicke’s always thoughtful writing on local government and would like to offer here some additional and very brief comments on this subject. I do so as someone who spent 40 years working with governments in a large number of countries on how they could enhance economic development and the health and education of their people. I also do so as a lifelong member of the political party of most of our County Councilors, which might surprise some people who read what I say below.

Although we may argue about the role of government, a county government like ours, should, in principle, focus on two subjects

 Ensuring through provision or contracting high quality and fairly-distributed social services and public goods, such as environmental standards, roads, education, health, parks and recreational services, libraries, water and sanitation, and waste collection. In our case, this also includes provision of electricity and gas.

 Creating an enabling environment for private investment in, essentially, everything else. This includes, for example, housing, office construction, hotels, restaurants, clothing stores, and health services.

Los Alamos has much that should attract private investment, given our wealth, our education, our low rate of property tax, and the high quality of our public services. This should be the case, despite our having little land, high housing prices, a lack of some types of labor, and a price-setting major employer.

Yet, in the seven years I have lived in Los Alamos, it has consistently appeared to me that our government here has disabled as much as enabled the kinds of private investments we need. This is fixable through better public policies.

Thus, I would suggest that the County turn its approach on its head and focus its actions and next Comprehensive Plan on two simple questions:

 How can we maintain and expand, as appropriate, our high level of public services and ensure their fairest possible distribution?

 How can we create an enabling environment for private investment in Los Alamos that makes private investors desperately want to invest in Los Alamos?

If the County can’t do the latter, Los Alamos will forever be a place like some of the “failed economies” studied by all students of development. We will have good services and a well- educated and healthy population that still has an insufficient number of places to live, few places to buy anything beyond food, and public policies that continue to discourage and disable private investment.