Progress Comes a Step at a Time

by Andrea Cunningham, Los Alamos Families for Progress

I have been a resident of the community for 15 years, I have delivered all three of my children at this hospital and we call this town home. We love our community and the wonderful things it does have to offer. However, there is much that could be done to improve it and our town is at a critical crossroad. We as a community have to decide if we are going to look toward the future or stay rooted in the crumbling ruins of the past.

As we approach the period of decision on Ordinance 529, I think it is critical to point out that this vote is the very first step, in a long line of steps, for the projects funded. This vote makes no decisions on site plans, retailers, design of the bypass road, or any one of the many decisions that need to be made in regards to these projects. What it does do is sell bonds with no tax increase to enable the town to plan for these future projects. Without this bond, we eliminate any possible plans for improvement and are left with the status quo; decaying infrastructure, declining economic base, and the loss of yet another opportunity to revitalize our town.

Recently I was able to visit my childhood home, a place I had not seen in 20 years. In my memory the house was bright as a new penny, with large trees for climbing and swaths of green grass. The shock of reality hit when, with fresh eyes, I saw a house much smaller than I remembered, surrounded by urban blight. Houses were run down and unkempt, the warmth replaced by chill. The saddest part was that my old neighbors did not seem to notice the change, it had happened so gradually.

They had become immune to the sights they saw on a daily basis, just as we in Los Alamos have become numb to the condition of our town. Like the frog who is happily boiled by the water temperature being slowly raised and who doesn’t notice the heat until it is too late, we have not noticed the steady decline of our infrastructure, the loss of our local retail and entertainment options, or the affect on quality of life that comes with the necessity of leaving the hill to meet basic needs.

The Trinity Site is the poster child of declining infrastructure for both the schools and the county. How many of us drive past the Quonset huts on a daily basis and just not see them? The true appearance of the entrance to our town doesn’t even register. Next time you drive by, take a good hard look at what sits on that site across the street from Smith’s and decide if you like what you see. Think of the upkeep costs for buildings that are in such disrepair, they were once condemned.

As for the loss of our local retail, the major stores that supplied the needs of the citizens are gone – not because LA did not support them – but because the national companies are no longer in existence. Montgomery Wards, TG&Y, Gibson’s, and Anthony’s were anchors for the other stores and when they went out of business, no one replaced them. Instead, the new businesses that meet these basic needs were built in Santa Fe and Española. We lose the majority of our expendable income (and tax base) to outside communities.

Yet there are still those who, like the frog, refuse to see the reality or feel the heat of the water. They protest every aspect of the proposed redevelopment and do not want to even have the opportunity to judge the merits of these proposals. They do not look at the cost of voting no. They do not consider the loss of opportunity, the possible loss of state funding for the bypass, the possible loss of future land transfer parcels, and the message that a “no” vote would send to those in Washington; Los Alamos does not want to support its own community! As George Chandler wrote in his editorial, “Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” We have the opportunity to move forward and to provide for the future of our children. Vote Yes on Ordinance 529.