BoomGov – Council Agenda for 11/19/24
Community broadband and a major land purchase.
Welcome to our BoomGov agenda preview for the upcoming Los Alamos County Council regular session on November 19th, 2024, at 6 p.m., in the Council Chambers at the Los Alamos County Municipal Building (1000 Central Ave). This preview contains a summary of the agenda, followed by some detailed information on a couple of topics of interest.
If you can’t make it in person, you can also attend via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84587518059
The full agenda is at the county’s website here.
Agenda Summary
Public comment
The public has a chance to weigh in on items not otherwise on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, either in person or by Zoom. The County’s e-comment feature allows you to add public comment asynchronously before noon on the day of the meeting. You can also also email CountyCouncil@lacnm.us to let them know your feelings on any topic.
Presentations, proclamations, & recognitions
Council plans to recognize November 30th as Small Business Saturday and December 3rd as Giving Tuesday.
There will also be a presentation from the chair of the Lodgers’ Tax Advisory Board, which advises Los Alamos County Council on how to advertise and promote attractions in Los Alamos County and best spend lodgers’ tax funds.
Consent agenda
The consent agenda is a group of routine items that Council can approve all at once without discussion, unless a Councilor requests to talk about a specific item. For this meeting it includes:
Awarding $3.5 million to Rio Grand Landscapes, LLC to renovate 11 of the county’s athletic fields in Los Alamos and White Rock.
Increasing the amount paid to LSP Data Solutions for “e-Discovery Services and Expertise in Response to” IPRA-related information requests, from $350k to $650k.
Public hearings
Public hearings are a chance for community members to voice their opinions on specific topics before Council makes a decision. At this meeting, Council will consider:
An ordinance to amend the Los Alamos County Development Code “with revisions related to uncontroversial and simple corrections of typos, errors, and text omitted.”
Business items:
These are key topics the Council will discuss in more detail. In this session, they will consider approving:
Two contracts with Bonfire Fiber LLC (Denver, CO) totalling $51 million to design, build, and manage a fiber-optic-based community broadband network
An agreement for Los Alamos County to purchase the land at/around the former Metzger’s service station / Anderson’s Pharmacy / Morning Glory Bakery site at Diamond and Sandia for $9.85 million.
(We’ve included more details about these two items below.)
Council business:
This week’s topics include routine reports such as “boards and commissions vacancies” and the county manager’s report for October 2024. A presentation for this month’s county manager’s report is buried can be found on page 476 of the 536-page full meeting agenda packet (34 MB download).
More details about the bigger topics:
Community Broadband Network:
One of Los Alamos County’s strategic goals is to “Provide community broadband as a basic essential service that will enable reliable high-speed internet service throughout the county at competitive pricing.”
Council will consider a proposal and corresponding budget revision to contract Bonfire Fiber LLC to design and build a county-wide fiber-optic network that will serve every home and business in Los Alamos County for $35 million. The county will own the network infrastructure. The proposal and various attachments are part of the published agenda.
Council will also consider a separate proposal and corresponding budget revision for a separate contract with Bonfire Fiber LLC to manage the network for $15.9 million over five years. The presentation slides also provide proposed price ranges and ideas for how the management contractor might work with local internet service providers.
Diamond/Sandia land purchase:
Council will consider purchasing ~2 acres of land on the SW corner of the Diamond/Sandia intersection for $9.85 million. The purchase would include three properties where Morning Glory Bakery, Anderson’s Pharmacy, and Metzger’s service station were previously located (lots #1 and #2 in the map below). This will also include the land and existing building (#3, formerly Ed’s Food Market) currently being leased by Los Alamos Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the New Mexico Environment Department, a branch of New Mexico’s Health Commons, and the offices of Los Alamos County Social Services.
It has been suggested to Boomtown that Los Alamos County could rezone the property from “light commercial” (e.g., car wash or parking lot) to “mixed use,” which would allow future developments to include retail, food, residential, and other uses. This would also be the proposed site for the county’s “Social Services Hub.” The current tenants would maintain their leases.
The land purchase proposal and related attachments are here in the published agenda.
(Editor’s note: While parcel #3 is sometimes referred to as “Boomtown Plaza”, there is no connection between it and this publication.)
Mark your calendars and stay informed!