Opinion

Community Invited To Provide Input On Wildfire Prevention

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COUNTY News:

A research team from Fire Adapted Communities New Mexico and Northern Arizona University is asking the community’s help in understanding local concerns related to human-caused wildfires in the Los Alamos area.

Los Alamos County is hosting a series of public discussion groups to gather resident perspectives and ideas about wildfire risk, forest restrictions (including closures), and other strategies that could be used to protect the community.

These conversations are confidential. Key points will be summarized and shared with local, state, regional and national wildfire Read More

Jones: Discussion Over County ‘Fair Market Value’

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By BECCA JONES
Realtor, Associate Broker
Los Alamos

I want to take a moment to discuss the recent property valuation notices (NOV) that include a new line item labeled “Fair Market Value”. In previous years, these notices typically displayed the prior year’s taxable value, the current year’s assessed value, and estimated property taxes. The addition of “Fair Market Value” can understandably raise questions about what this number actually represents.

As a licensed realtor, I believe it’s helpful to understand how this figure is determined per the County Assessor’s Office. The “Fair Market Read More

Bear Trouble

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Scene this morning from bear overnight dismantling an unsecured trash can at a local playlot. Courtesy/Katie Bruell

By KATIE BRUELL
Los Alamos

Dear Los Alamos County,

Have you heard the phrase, “a fed bear is a dead bear?” I’m guessing yes, which is why I don’t understand how you persist in attracting the bears out of the canyon into our playlots with unsecured trash.

We citizens are doing our part by getting bear safe trash cans, keeping our trash inside our garages (if we have them) not feeding our pets outside, and doing all the other things your utility bill inserts ask us to. But it doesn’t matter Read More

Op-Ed: DPU Should Consider Shopping Local For Solar

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By RICK NEBEL
Los Alamos

Several years ago, my wife Kathy and my son Dan worked for Carol and Tex Felts at Los Alamos Music. Like many small businesses they provided multiple services to the community. They gave music lessons. They sold new and used instruments. They did “rent-to-own” instruments for beginners. They repaired instruments. However, the real money-maker for that business was that Tex tuned pianos.

For many years, Tex had a contract with the County to tune its pianos. One year he put in his usual bid, and the County told him that they had awarded the contract to some outfit from Santa   Read More

Review: LALT’s ‘Copenhagen’ Proves 1941 Meeting Remains Relevant 84 Years Later

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‘Copenhagen’ starring Jeff Favorite as Werner Heisenberg, Angel Virgillio as Margrethe Bohr and Thomas Graves as Neils Bohr, focuses on a conversation between two Nobel Prize winning physicists during WWII. Photo by Ashely Horner/LALT

Review By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

The play, “Copenhagen” focuses on a meeting that occurred 84 years ago when Danish physicist Niels Bohr met with German physicist Werner Heisenberg. What were the exact details of this almost century-old conversation? No one really knows but Michael Frayn’s play presents several Read More

Op-Ed: National Park People … May I Salute You?

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By Steve Scarano
Vista, Calif.

Dear National Park People,

May I salute you? I know that this is a particularly challenging season of service for you, and while mine is certainly not the only voice crying in the wilderness to acknowledge that and may even ring a bit hollow in the short view, the option of silence is just not viable to me. So here we are.

I’m a card-carrying property owner and cherish our parks, monuments, historic sites and recreation areas. Thank you for making them available to us. In fact, for decades it has been my practice to express my gratitude when I’ve either coincidentally met Read More

Youth Mental Health: If Outcomes Don’t Matter, Nothing Does

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By JAMES WERNICKE
Los Alamos Parent

Since the dawn of humanity, all parents have shared the same experience—watching their children grow into raging balls of hormones as they enter adolescence—and all parents respond the same way—doing the best they can to guide them through it. In the past, there was the village. Generations lived under one roof with extended family biologically hardwired to step in and help.

Today, many of us live far from family in neighborhoods where everyone’s busy, help is a luxury, and community is aspirational. If we’re lucky, we find trusted friends. If not, we rely Read More

Altherr: Thank You All For All You Do And All You Have Done!

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The coloration of the Gila trout has been likened to a New Mexico sunset. Courtesy/Michael Altherr

By MICHAEL ALTHERR
Los Alamos

On this Earth Day, I want to pay tribute to the Federal employees and all those who insured the successes of the environmental movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. In spite of the Vietnam War, and the sins of the Nixon administration, that period of time gave rise to The Clean Air Act (63’); The Wilderness Act (64’); The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (68’); The Endangered Species Act (74’); The Clean Water Act (77’) and others. It seems nostalgic to remember a time when  politicians Read More

Mason: Unified Focus On Traffic Safety Is Essential

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By Director Thom Mason
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory supports Los Alamos County’s recent efforts to control speeding and enforce traffic safety through an ordinance approved last week to install automated speed cameras in various locations around the county. The ordinance complements efforts taken by the Laboratory in recent months to further promote safer driving on and around Lab property. The Laboratory has installed mobile speed cameras around the site, utilized GPS systems in government vehicles that track speed, seatbelt usage, and location of Read More

Libby Nolen: Thank You Los Alamos!

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By LIBBY NOLEN
Los Alamos

I wrote a letter to the editor a few weeks ago talking about the struggles that teenagers face in Los Alamos (link). I did not expect the response that I got. I truly thought that it would be another one of those Op/Eds of a person complaining about something that no one listened to. However, I was proven wrong. Los Alamos, you listened. And I really appreciate that.

The response to my letter has been mostly positive, and to those people, I say thank you for sharing your past experiences with me. It really makes me feel seen to know that my generation is not the only one struggling Read More