Letters

The county has finally reached the drop-dead point with regard to the redo of N.M. 502 from Knecht to Tewa Loop. The hastily generated design created by PW in January was done without serious critiquing, endorsed by the Transportation Board under questionable circumstances, and approved quickly by the council as it “needed to rush this through urgently to insure funding”, even as some of us indicated that it would not meet LOS.
 This design has now been soundly rejected by state (NMDoT) and federal (FHWA) agencies based on LOS. We are now finding that another design is to be presented to the council for quick approval. Again, the Transportation Board has approved a design at its Dec. 6 meeting that was only made public at their meeting. Council will be discussing this design tonight in chambers. Again, as before, this design has not been through the scrutiny that council insisted on last year for an acceptable design of this portion of N.M. 502 to insure that the circumstances that were encountered with the Trinity redo were not repeated. I am sure that the new Administrator will be quite sensitive to minimizing these continued embarrassments to the council.

Four years ago while president of the LAPS School Board, I wrote a letter to the editor explaining the motivation for the 2009 school bond election.
 In that letter, I appealed to the community to consider a significant bond in order to reverse a deteriorating trend; namely, that some of our key school facilities were in dire need of serious attention.  Further, I stated that we could not afford major replacement of entire facilities; that we could only afford phased renovation or replacement projects to add years of useful life to our existing facilities.
A “frugal” 20-year facilities renewal plan was developed to prioritize and guide our attention and phased investments. The plan’s guiding premise was renovate and only when renovation is not cost effective was replacement to be even considered.  The plan directed we concentrate on the high and middle schools first, followed by Aspen elementary.  Priorities were also established to address corrective maintenance projects at all school sites.

Now that the election is over and tempers have cooled, I would like to explore why election times have to be so vitriolic? Why can not an election dialogue be civil? We should be very thankful for the numerous freedoms that we, as Americans enjoy and often take for granted — such as voting, freedom of speech, and a right to our own personal opinions. America is one of the few countries that can have a complete change in governing regimes without mass upheavals from the people, yet we choose to attack those with whom we disagree with vile words.
The past presidential election discourses seemed to abound with an insatiable desire to belittle those with differing ideas. Political ads, which came in spades, were revolting in the way they attacked the opposing party. Often the attacks were not focused on particular issues, but rather were replete with slanderous verbiage. What happened to the days of spirited debates in the public square? What happened to dissecting ideas rather than people? Why can we not have a “grown-up” discussions with people of different persuasions, rather than all of the childish backbiting attacks?

This past week our newest county councilor Rick Reiss and councilors-elect Kristin Henderson, Pete Sheehey and Steve Girrens attended a County Governance Boot Camp in Albuquerque.
Though no physical training, close order drills or snap inspections were involved, we were indoctrinated to several aspects of county commissioner service including roles and responsibilities, ethics and professionalism, employment law, finance policy, jail management and liability, statutory government structure and legislative process.  
We also heard from veteran commissioners conveying lessons learned and their insights relative to current issues statewide.  
The Boot Camp was hosted by the New Mexico Association of Counties of which Los Alamos County is a member.  More than 100 elected officials and county managers were in attendance.  We were particularly impressed by a few counties who had all standing and new commissioners as well as their county manager attending as a team.   The presentations and experiences delivered were informative, eye-opening and in some cases a little sobering.  
Regardless, we have confidence we will remain enthusiastic to join our three veteran councilors and serve.  Our county administrator encouraged we attend Boot Camp.  Thank you Harry!