By KEITH LEPSCH
Los Alamos County Councilor
Hi, this is Keith Lepsch, I am the newest Councilor and was appointed in April to fill a vacancy on County Council. During this time I have appreciated all of the input from community members and look forward to continuing to engage with citizens and organizations to better understand how we can continue to make our community a better place.
Overall, I would like to start by stating that while I am still gaining experience with the County operations and the government processes, I have been very impressed and pleased by all of the County staff and systems that I have witnessed on my short tenure on the Council. We have really amazing County employees that work very hard to improve our community. I find them be conscientious, caring, and really work hard to implement the strategic directives from Council. The county staff are extremely approachable. I have found all of them to be fair, balanced and super helpful in getting me the information I need to make decisions. I am very appreciative for our County staff.
When I started the first full meetings were budget hearings. For me two highlights: One, the County is in a financially very stable position. Two, we approved additional staffing for the Police Department so that officers will never have to be alone on patrol but will always be on shift with at least two officers. We have an extraordinarily safe community, however, it was important to me and Council that we support our wonderful police department with this basic standard.
Broadly speaking, we have many wonderful amenities in our community, trails, ice rink, aquatic center, splash pad, etc. I would like to see us keep all of these in excellent shape and improve as we reasonably can. For example, I think that the Leisure Lagoon addition to the aquatic center will be amazing for our children. The zero-entry pool would have been amazing when my son was younger, but I’m glad other parents will get this benefit. That being said, we do have a lot of bicycle enthusiasts in the community to include me, so I was mildly disappointed that we could not find consensus on some of the bike trail upgrades. That is an ongoing issue, and I hope that we can find a balance in the community (flow trail, skills park, etc.).
The Cerro Pelado Wildfire sparked some controversy around trail use, especially during the fire. I think our Fire Chief Hughes made the correct decision for the time in mirroring the closures of all of our surrounding agencies. Although there were some frustrations in the community about the trail closures, and I also wished that I could use the trails during that time, I do not think it was appropriate for us to second-guess the Fire Chief during the fire. I’ve been extremely impressed with how the Fire Chief and the Fire Department have reflected on trail closures and balancing safety, our desire to recreate, and have made new proposals for fire season trail management in the future.
The Golf Course. I also started on Council in the middle of the golf course discussion. I think our County Manager summarized it best at one of our meetings framing it primarily as maintenance and upkeep of one of our wonderful town amenities. Essentially, we were faced with two probable safety issues, Diamond Drive, and the driving range. Additionally, the golf course had significant amounts of deferred maintenance. So, after two consultants, multiple additional proposals, and multiple discussions we moved to go forward with funding for deferred maintenance without expanding the footprint of the golf course at all. I am not personally a golfer, but as above, I think it is wonderful to take care of all of our town’s amenities.
White Rock Metropolitan Redevelopment Area. This was a positive step that will allow the County to support and hopefully bring new businesses in life to the White Rock downtown area. Without this designation, the County has fewer tools available to support redevelopment for housing, new business space, and a more attractive area for folks to spend time in.
Finally, the updates to the County’s Development Code (Chapter 16), and what is often referred to as the Nuisance Code (Chapter 18). I am pleased that we passed this, and I believe that these are significant improvements to both chapters and we are in better shape today than before we passed these updates. We intend to revisit any needed revisions or improvements as they are identified.
It has been my pleasure to serve as a new Councilor and I think we have an amazing community. I’m very happy to live in and serve Los Alamos.
