By KRISTIN HENDERSONI am writing this letter to say thank you to my fellow community members, and my fellow County Councilors, for the opportunity to serve Los Alamos as the Chair of the Los Alamos County Council for 2015.
As most, but not all, of our community knows, Los Alamos is both a city and a county, effectively, under the New Mexico Constitution; the only such entity in the State. Accordingly, rather than have both a County Commission and a City Council for the same geography – and more importantly, the same citizens – our “forefathers” in the 1960s opted for one elected body, in the form of the hybrid County Council. Each January, the Council selects a Chair.
Many of the responsibilities of the Chair are obvious – chairing the Council meetings, officiating at certain community events – and some less obvious, such as setting the Agenda for the Council meetings (with a rotating subset of Councilors and senior County staff), and representing the community in the region and in Washington, D.C.
I was honored to represent Los Alamos, this year, at the first-ever New Mexico Mayor’s Summit, in Albuquerque, as well as at the ceremony for the creation of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and the dedication of the Ben Ray Lujan Memorial Highway, among other events.
I was also honored to lead a Los Alamos contingent in meetings with our Senators and Representatives in DC, and with many senior staff people at the NNSA, the DOE and the EPA.
As the community that hosts the most important scientific Laboratory in the nation, there are any number of issues, both at the legislative and the staff level, where decisions made in DC directly affect our lives, from continued funding for LDRD projects, to environmental cleanup and Lab contracting issues.
We also, of course, saw the creation of the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park, so we also met with the DOI and the NPS. In town, we hosted a three-city event with Hanford and Oak Ridge, the other communities involved in the Manhattan Project Park, and the NPS, DOE and DOI to work on the creation of the Park.
Los Alamos has been fortunate, this last year, to see the work of a great many people, both in the community and on past Councils, come to fruition. We have a new, beautiful library and a remodeled Teen Center in White Rock; a dedicated Teen Center on the hill, and the new PEEC Nature Center, among other things. We also opened the first Manhattan Project National Historical Park Visitor Center. I also appreciate all the hard work that the County staff put into these projects, and all the day to day work they do as well.
At the County Council’s first meeting in 2016, this week, I was happy to support fellow Councilors Rick Reiss for Chair this year, and Susan O’Leary for Vice-Chair. I am sure they will do many good things for our community this upcoming year
Again, thank you for the opportunity to serve Los Alamos as County Council Chair in 2015; it was an honor.
