Letters to the Editor

By BRANDI ENGEMAN
White Rock

On December 7th, Los Alamos County Council voted into place an ordinance on cannabis retail within the County limits.

The state law allows for small, home based, microbusinesses but Tuesday night, four members of the Los Alamos County Council voted on a highly restrictive local ordinance that effectively shuts down the idea of these integrated micro businesses operating in any residential areas. They used things like alcohol sales and the list of currently allowed home businesses to compare cannabis sales and back up their claims that our town shouldn’t support Read More

By JONATHAN LEDUC
Wheeed LLC

Wheeed LLC would just like to say, Thanks! Thanks to Los Alamos County Council for embracing cannabis in Los Alamos.

Thank you to the Los Alamos Chamber and MainStreet programs of Los Alamos Commerce & Development Corporation (LACDC), for the retail accelerator program.

The best small business program we have ever seen in Los Alamos! This new program has allowed four new local businesses to test their retail concepts in town. Thanks to all of the presenters of the retail accelerator, we learned a lot every week.

A super huge thank you to Ryn Herrmann (Chamber director) Read More

By AARON WALKER
White Rock

If you come to a conversation in bad faith, any argument you make will be discounted. Council has been coming to almost every argument in bad faith lately due to a string of very questionable decisions and flip-flopping by specific councilors for no apparent reason. Councilor Derkacs characterized my public comment rather poorly, so I am going to clear things up.

There is no problem with councilors getting opinions from constituents outside of the public forum. The problem lies with those councilors listening to ONLY the comment they get from that forum. Several councilors Read More

By JAMES KUROPATWINSKI
Los Alamos

Nov. 24 came and went, and whereas the laws of biology are flexible enough to allow medical professionals to administer the second vaccine dose a day early, the laws of bureaucracy (as verified by the staff of LANL Occupational Medicine) were not as accommodating.

“Return to work” is defined as day 15 (i.e., the day after “fully vaccinated”) and day 15 for me fell on Thanksgiving Day. Hence, my return to work was Monday Nov. 29. I was quite thankful to have one more weekend to enjoy the accommodation.

Return to work was an interesting experience. Prior to setting Read More

By BETH PATTILLO
Chair
TOTH Children’s Christmas Bazaar

I would like to thank the Los Alamos community for their generosity in supporting the annual Children’s Christmas Bazaar at Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church (TOTH) during Winterfest weekend. It was a truly giving event!

Sixty-seven people gave their time and talents preparing for the bazaar, serving treats, helping children select gifts, greeting, handing out gift bags and cleaning up. Eleven people baked treats for guests and elves. Numerous people donated gift items for the event. And the event keeps on giving; proceeds from Read More

ANN HAYES
Visit with Santa Committee

The Kiwanis Club of Los Alamos would like to thank the community for the fantastic turnout for our Visit with Santa, held last Saturday.

Because of the pandemic, we were unable to hold our usual breakfast event. The compromise, a Visit with Santa, held in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish Hall, was attended by hundreds of families. We were blessed with good weather, as well.

Kiwanis would like to thank Del Norte Credit Union, which provided a generous check to help with our event. Thanks also goes to Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish for allowing us to use their Read More

By GEORGE CHANDLER
Los Alamos

As always there is much passion around the subject of legalizing marijuana, based on nearly a century of tragic, violent, black market warfare and social stigma.

The New Mexico legislature followed current trends and legalized “recreational marijuana” last year, and established rules for both personal and commercial cultivation and manufacture of cannabis, for personal consumption and for retail sale and consumption.

Local entrepreneurs asked the County to allow them to establish a “cannabis microbusiness” in a residential district, triggering the development Read More

By ED BIRNBAUM
Los Alamos

I was pleased to see Council vote to enforce the Fire Marshall’s recommendation to require the owners of Hilltop House to demolish the building.

It’s a sad day for Los Alamos, but there are few alternatives in view of the legacy of neglect over the course of so many years.

I still remember eating lunch at a table by the big window on the second floor, with that killer view of the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo mountains, as part of one stop on a college graduation trip around the country with my best friend in 1964.

One thing that puzzles me is what appears to be a lack of ‘due diligence’ Read More

By ZHEN HUANG
Los Alamos

While we discuss whether we should have a retail store of recreational cannabis in Los Alamos, here is a BBC report I recommend for us Los Alamos citizens to read.

Some of the questions to ask ourselves include:

• Does cannabis business create decent jobs for those less fortunate people? 
• Who would be most interested in and also benefited from a boom of the cannabis  business? 
• Is the cannabis business welcomed by our indigenous neighbors? 
• Why has cannabis business caused tense confrontations among the Navajo residents? 
• Can cannabis businesses help to solve the poverty

Read More

By CHICK KELLER
Los Alamos

In this era of attempting to reduce our use of fossil fuels, people are turning away from natural gas stoves to what are called induction stoves. 

The name comes from the way the stove heats: an oscillating magnetic field induces vibration in cookware, which, in turn, heats it. This is a very efficient way for a stove to work.

Induction stoves have many advantages over traditional electric or gas ranges. First, they use electricity instead of natural gas (which produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas). It also heats things more quickly. In a way it does away with that Read More