Opinion

Letter To The Editor: Who Exactly Is Pointing Fingers?

by

By DAREN SAVAGE
Los Alamos

Who Exactly is Pointing Fingers?

In Bill O’Neill’s Letter to the Editor, “On Finger Pointing … Never A Good Idea” it only took O’Neill four short paragraphs to get to the point of his column; pointing his finger at the “Republican-led House” who did not approve the “Democrat-led Senate” spending bill.

I added the party affiliation to the NM Senate for O’Neill since he overlooked that detail when describing himself and fellow House members.

I am not surprised that O’Neill has heard of Read More

Letter To The Editor: On Finger Pointing … Never A Good Idea

by

By Sen. BILL O’NEILL
D-13 Bernalillo
 
SANTA FE ― The 2015 legislative session has adjourned, giving ample time to reflect on both its disappointments and accomplishments.
Certainly, the inability to pass our much-needed $264 million capital outlay bill was disheartening to say the least. Included in the capital outlay bill were vital improvements for senior centers, public school buildings, public libraries, museums, health centers, etc.
Following the usual procedure, the Senate sent a unanimously approved bill to the House with plenty of time for it to be amended
Read More

Letter To The Editor: Waiting For Leasure Pool My Brown Beard Is White And Toddlers Are In College

by

By DAVID CARROLL
Los Alamos

When discussion began on construction of a leisure pool at the Walkup Aquatic Center (WAC), my two daughters were toddlers and my beard was dark-brown. The kids are now in graduate school and a senior in college and my beard is white.

As a facility that from the beginning catered to athletes and competitive swimmers, the WAC has never served the entire Los Alamos community as intended. We used the WAC many times, but in was never appropriate for children/families. The water was too cold, too deep with adults and competitive swimmers the obvious focus.

We made do with the Read More

Letter To The Editor: Ban Bag Bans

by

By JOHN STEPHENSON
White Rock

If a plastic bag ban goes into effect here in Los Alamos County, rather than pay a .10 fee for paper, I’ll just purchase my own plastic bags at Sam’s Club. At $12.98 per thousand it would be cheaper. 

Maybe I’ll just get my groceries there while I’m at it. 

In the meantime, I’m going to start double bagging to stock up my own supply. 

Ban away, we’ll just work around it. 

Read More

Letter To The Editor: Bags – To Choose Or Not…

by

By RICHARD HANNEMANN
Los Alamos 

Let’s see: we have cloth bags, we have plastic bags, we have paper bags, and we have boxes (Costco has always sent customers home with boxes that originally had the products shipped to Costco). 

That’s four choices. And people do choose: some use paper (arts and crafts projects), some use boxes (storage, etc), some use plastic (garbage and animal waste disposal, storage), some use cloth (particularly when you have enough paper, plastic and boxes to meet those needs), some use combinations of all of the above.

People are

Read More

Letter to the Editor: First Earth Day In Los Alamos

by

By Mary Louise Williams
Los Alamos
 
To remember the first Earth Day in Los Alamos County, one must give credit where it is due – the Los Alamos High School students to Save Our Environment.
 
A group of very concerned students answered the call of a teacher and formed a group to determine how to plan for a first Earth Day. They were linking up with the efforts of the newly formed Citizens for Clean Air and Water, a group of citezens and lab scientists who had begun addressing the deadly air pollution from the Four Corners power plants.
 
The idea for the First Earth Day arose nationally
Read More

Letter To The Editor: We Can’t Have It Both Ways

by

By DAREN SAVAGE
Los Alamos

In reference to Donald Simonson’s column, “How Corporate Tax Loopholes Compromise Our Future”, Simonson does not want to admit, or doesn’t understand that corporations don’t pay taxes; their customers do.  

Consumers pay for every cost of running a business, plus a bit more to make it worth the owners’ time to keep the business open.

Trying to enforce some type of imaginary corporate tax only increases the tax burden on all of us. On the other hand, making a state attractive to corporations by lowering the tax burden

Read More

Letter To The Editor: Don’t Let Your Legacy Be Defined By The Trash You Leave Behind

by

 By EMMA COHEN
Los Alamos
 
Did you know that over 1 trillion single-use plastic bags are used each year? And that the U.S alone uses 100 billion plastic bags annually?

Single-use plastic bags never fully biodegrade, the bags break down from the heat and sunlight into smaller pieces that end up in the soil and waterways. Living in a landlocked state, we do not have to worry too much about our trash becoming marine pollution, but for many coastal cities their trash becomes part of an array of trash gyres throughout the oceans. In some areas,
Read More

How Corporate Tax Loopholes Compromise Our Future

by

By DONALD SIMONSON, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Finance, UNM

The notion of “paying it forward” is a popular one, and while we may not think about our income taxes as a form of paying it forward, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

The public works that we all depend upon today—roads and highways, schools and parks, telecommunications and electrical grids, even courts and prisons—were made possible in part by taxes paid by past generations.

And the taxes we pay today won’t just go toward keeping these systems and infrastructure in good repair, they will also be needed to plan for our future and address Read More

Letter To The Editor: Call For Facility That Meets Needs Of Majority Of Population At Every Age

by

By ASHLEY MAMULA
Los Alamos
 
Dear County Councilors,
 
I just spent spring break in Breckenridge, Colo., and spent four days using their county rec center.
 
I am always happy to buy the punch pass to use this facility. One of the highlights is their pool area. Along with the lanes dedicated to swimming, they have hot tubs, a sauna, and steam room. What a novel idea for an aquatic area! It is hard for me to believe that here in Los Alamos, we have an entire facility dedicated to aquatics and it lacks hot tubs, sauna, or steam!  
 
The best part of the swimming area in Breckenridge
Read More