Letters to the Editor

By RICHARD NEBEL
Los Alamos

This is an answer to Ann Perkins’s recent letter to the editor (link) on the demise of businesses in Los Alamos. If you want to solve the problem, the first thing you need to do is understand what the problem is. In Los Alamos, the costs are high and the market is small. Low dollar businesses have a hard time competing with LANL, doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc. for space.

The best solution for this is for small businesses to own the buildings they are located in. Not having to pay rent makes businesses more resilient and better able to weather events like the coronavirus pandemic. Read More

By ANN PERKINS
Los Alamos

Are You Sad? I am, and I expect you are, too.  It’s okay to say that we are sad. It is true.

In the US we have now have hit over 6 million cases of COVID-19 and 183,500 deaths (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html).

In the world, we are at over 25 million cases and over 850,500 deaths.

In New Mexico we have over 25,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 779 deaths.

In Los Alamos we are lucky and smart to have taken precautions so that we have been able to keep our cases down; currently we are at 27 cases and no deaths. (https://cvprovider.nmhealth.org/public-dashboard.html).

Thank Read More

By LYNN HANRAHAN
Los Alamos

Bears in backyards. Bears being relocated. I never want to see another one of these pictures again. They make me sad.

Bears come to town because people attract them. Smelly garbage left in unsecured rollcarts, birdfeeders, hummingbird feeders, ripe fruit left lying around, pet food in backyards, the list goes on.

I live on a North Mesa canyon lot. The neighbors on either side of me and my family have easily cleaned up a couple of hundred pounds of garbage bears have dragged down behind our houses. It’s usually obvious where it came from. I put up a sign on top of the Read More

By EDUARDO SANTIAGO
Los Alamos

Like many of us, I’ve spent more time at the Roundhouse these last four years than in all my prior decades in New Mexico combined.

For some of that time I’ve had the opportunity to observe Representative Christine Chandler make an impressive running start since her 2018 election.

I’ve watched her speak in committee and on the floor, and if she’s made any long-winded bombastic speeches – you know the ones I mean – I’ve missed them: all I’ve seen and heard are questions and responses that demonstrate her fully having done her homework, reading and understanding Read More

By CORNELL WRIGHT
Los Alamos

I am responding to an article written by Mr. George Chandler on Aug. 23 (link).

I am a member of the Los Alamos County Board of Public Utilities (BPU), but these are my opinions, not those of the Board. My opinions, however, are strongly influenced by several days of study of the NuScale nuclear reactor design and the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), which I have undertaken as a member of the BPU.

Mr. George Chandler has written to local papers and spoken at public meetings about the NuScale reactor that is at the heart of the CFPP. His points leave out significant context Read More

By AARON WALKER
Independent Candidate
Los Alamos County Council

Mr. George Chandler wrote a letter (link) suggesting the county back out of the Fluor/Nuscale small modular reactor project. He identified quite a few details of the project that he had an issue with and was worried about. In that letter he also stated that “Los Alamos needs new non-carbon reliable power sources”.

If we continue down the path of heavy reliance on wind/solar without the technology to cheaply and efficiently store the energy, we will be in the same energy crisis that California (and parts of New Mexico) are facing during Read More