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Letters

  • We aren't made of rubber

    What ever happened to “look both ways before crossing the street?” Is it no longer taught to our children or practiced by adults?
    When are we, as a society, going to realize that most drivers are idiots? They drink, eat, put on makeup, talk on their cell phones, read, talk to their passengers (even to themselves), text — everything but drive. Right foot on the gas, left on the brake and head in the clouds. And yet we continue to step out in front of them. Whether it is walking in a parking lot, crossing at a crosswalk or anywhere else where vehicles drive, somehow we just don’t think about that idiot driver that has more important (in their mind) things to do than watch out for other human beings.

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  • Quality of life issue

    A number of years ago, we drove through Canada as we made our way from Los Alamos to Alaska. Almost every Canadian town had three things in common – very friendly people, a curling rink and a multi-use aquatics center.
    Like these towns, Los Alamos already has friendly people and a wonderful aquatic center. While our aquatic center is as nice or nicer than many that we saw in Canada, it does not have the leisure pool that we saw in the Canadian centers.
    Alongside the multi-use lap/diving pools, these centers had a warmer pool with slides for kids and rivers for walking in, appropriate for all ages. These pools were always well used. I envision such a complex as a worthy enhancement to the great quality of life that we already enjoy in Los Alamos.

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  • Let’s stabilize those precarious boulders

    I’ve watched with interest the debate about what, if anything, should be done with the N.M. 502/Trinity Drive Corridor project.
    It appears that there’s money to be spent and we must find a way to spend it – to avoid losing it – regardless of the impact on quality-of-life for commuters and local residents.
    After reading about the “near miss” incident on the main hill road, wherein a car was demolished by a falling boulder (not the first time this has happened), I’d like to suggest that if  money MUST be spent on road improvements, we turn our attention away from the N.M. 502 project and think about stabilizing the mountainside that periodically rains life-threatening boulders onto vehicles in route to Los Alamos.

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  • Mountain roads really must be taken seriously

    Sheesh. Two tractor trailers have lost it and crashed in two days on one of our most popular bike rides and recreational roads, N.M. 4, just above the Back Gate.
    From those pictures in the Los Alamos Monitor, it sure is lucky no one on a bike or motor vehicle was in the way.
    It’s also apparently a good idea for a bicyclist to know how to descend that road really fast. Faster than an out-of-control 18-wheeler, at least.
    I better stop trying to lose weight. Gravity loves a big guy. Is it my imagination, or have there not always been a few big rigs driving that route?
    Is it more than coincidence that both trucks were from the same company (according to the Los Alamos Monitor, BB Transport of Colorado) and both loaded with crushed cars?

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  • Medicare train wreck's coming

    When a train is heading into a known train wreck, but a switch will allow it to continue on a different tack and avoid the train wreck, should fear or courage allow us to dictate the course of that train?
    I am a consumer of Medicare dollars, spending approximately $35,000 to $70,000 per year for my medical condition. Let’s look at the facts instead of the myths surrounding Medicare reform.
    •Medicare in its current form, will be bankrupt before 2020. Every report confirms that  Medicare spends more money than it takes in. The train wreck is coming. The checks will stop.

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  • Burgess was best pick

    Yippee!  Thank you!  
    I have been doing a jig since I read last night’s Monitor (and you know that’s a tall order for me).  
    It’s had to have been a grueling process for you, our council, as well as for the candidates, yet I feel your choice was the very best!  
    Thank you, each of you, for all the effort and care you put in to bringing such a talented person to Los Alamos. After meeting all the candidates and listening to each of them, Harry (Burgess)’ energy, openness and well thought out responses won me over.

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  • Leisure pool could benefit everyone

    I have to agree with Robert Visel that the “property taxes in this town are ridiculous” — they average about 60 percent per housing unit of the rate in Livermore and 25 percent or less of other places that a Los Alamos resident is likely to move to (almost anywhere else in California, Massachusetts, New York; see http://www.city-data.com/zips/.

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  • Don’t raise property taxes

    Dear Editor,
    As everyone should know by now they will be receiving a mail-in ballot to vote on a General Obligation Bond to support the construction of a new leisure pool at the Aquatic Center.
      I’m all for this new pool but not at the expense of me having to pay higher property taxes which is how these type of bonds are paid for.  The property taxes in this town are ridiculous as it is and I’m sure not going to pay any more!  And don’t tell me the property taxes won’t go up.  I’ve heard that one before.

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  • Diamond delays truly costly

    The Los Alamos Monitor’s blazing headline on Sunday, September 30, “Councilor makes costly motion,” was about three County staffers each spending roughly five hours waiting for an agenda item delayed in a Council meeting.
    Actually, most staffers anticipate that possibility and work on something else in an anteroom.  The time can be at least partially productive.
    A more important story would address how much time we have wasted sitting in traffic on Diamond Drive.  Construction took five years, not the planned three.  In most of those years, work extended weeks to months beyond what was scheduled.  Traffic control plans appeared to have been developed in response to jams, not engineered in advance and then tweaked.

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  • Naming names is important

    As I read the Sunday Los Alamos Monitor with excitement on the ‘Toppers win against the Albuquerque Academy Chargers, I realized there was an important omission as I read the front page photo caption next to the photo of the homecoming court members.    
    The photo caption finished by saying: “At halftime of Friday night’s game, the homecoming court also was announced.”  
    This is where the omission occurred.
    This would have been a great opportunity to name the members of the homecoming court — at a minimum — the names of the homecoming king and queen.

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