Elect Eric Stromberg for Los Alamos County Council

Local Issues

  • 2026 Comprehensive Plan Lacks Detail

    by Eric Stromberg, 2026 Candidate for Los Alamos County Council

    The 2026 Comprehensive plan includes a good deal of vision for the community, but is lacking in details. Many aspects of the plan depend on workers, from construction, to trades, retail and service personnel. There is a severe workforce shortage in the service industry. This has been a persistent issue in the County. From where will these workers come?

    Currently, most come from off the hill, because there is a
    shortage of affordable housing, or they would rather live elsewhere. Each issue must be meaningfully addressed. What starts as affordable housing never remains so, and cost ends up being out of reach for many.

    Another theme of the Comprehensive plan is to have a walking community. For this to happen, people would have to live downtown and there would have to be all the shops downtown that people want to frequent. I’m not clear on the underlying vision here. People currently live on North Mesa, Barranca Mesa, Northern
    community, Quemazon, the West side, and other places. It’s not likely that the residents of these neighborhoods will walk to downtown.

    Each of these neighborhoods would need to be similarly developed. Bicycles were also mentioned a number of times. It seems as
    though the vision is to get people to walk and ride bicycles as much as possible. This does not represent the vision of the overall community.

    The success of the Comprehensive Plan depends on a robust workforce living in the community and in the downtown area. We must address this issue first to move forward with this plan.

    Contact me at eric@electstromberg.com

  • Gas vs Electric: It’s Your Choice

    Gas vs. Electric;  It’s Your Choice  by Eric Stromberg, 2026 Candidate for Los Alamos County Council

    Years ago, when the county developed its Climate Action Plan, there was an idea of trying to get the community to change their gas appliances to electric. The current thinking is that, if electricity gets cheaper and gas gets more expensive, people will
    naturally switch as time goes by. People will switch naturally. When appliances need to be replaced, people might opt to go electric at that point. If a gas boiler for a furnace system needs to be replaced, people might opt for a heat-pump that will also provide air conditioning. Currently, natural gas still has a lower carbon footprint than electric.

    The County’s hope is that the electrical supply from Foxtail Flats Solar, when it comes online in 2027, will change this and that the electrical supply will then have a lower carbon footprint than natural gas. Of course, there are many things to consider. If your house is all electric, what happens when the power fails? Everything stops. No
    heat, no air-conditioning, no hot water, no cooking. If a generator is used, it would have to be a fairly large generator to power those loads. 

    If a house uses gas for heating, cooking, and hot water, a fairly small generator could be used to supply power to the house. But if anything is used as a backup source for the home, battery or generator, it requires an expensive reworking of the home’s electrical system because a transfer switch has to be installed that will disconnect the home from the grid while the backup is being used.

    The Los Alamos County Department of Public Utilities has recently added a demand charge. Electrical power is not used consistently throughout the month. Each hour of the 720 hours in a month are monitored and the hour that has the highest usage in Kilowatts is
    used to add one dollar per kilowatt on top of your regular utility bill. As an example, if your bill is $250 for the energy used, and your maximum power draw was 20 kilowatts, 20 dollars will be added to the bill, making the total $270.  The County is asking people to switch from gas to electric and then charges them extra for using more electricity.   I voted against this demand charge.

    Ultimately, residents must decide whether to switch to electric or remain with gas.  

    I do not support our County’s forcing our businesses and residents to convert from natural gas to electric appliances.

    Contact me at eric@electstromberg.com

  • License Plate Readers: Technology Lacks Safeguards against Hacking

    by Eric Stromberg, 2026 Candidate for Los Alamos County Council

    Every issue can be seen as a coin of two sides. So it is with the license plate readers. Have license plate readers been used to solve crimes and catch criminals? Yes, they have. Have they been used to find abducted children? Yes, they have. Wouldn’t it be nice if this “coin” only had this side? But, unfortunately, there’s another side.

    The cameras communicate through the mobile phone network, the data are kept in the “cloud,” which is another name for someone else’s computer. There are extremely talented and committed hackers out there. In addition to hacking, there have also been instances where these cameras have been used by bad actors within law enforcement
    for unofficial purposes. Yes, guardrails are in place, procedures for internal audits are in place, data encryption is in place, but this is only for our local LAPD users.

    Companies like Axon collect far more data than they provide to LAPD, and that data never goes away and is sold to the highest bidder. Any system can be hacked, and we live in an area that is at the top of the list for hackers.

    As with any technology, it must evolve to a point where the “tails” side of the coin doesn’t outweigh the “heads” side of the coin. Unfortunately, at this point, technology has not evolved to that
    degree. In the meantime, the license plate readers should be taken down and put in storage.

    Contact me at eric@electstromberg.com

  • Why are utility rates rising?

    Utility Rates:   Many citizens are asking the following questions:  

    Why are they going up?

    Why is there a profit transfer from utilities to the general fund?

    What is the demand charge and why is this being added to my bill?

    Costs for pretty much everything have been rising.  Gas, groceries, items at the hardware store, you name it.  As far as utilities go, the cost of the commodities that the department buys have been increasing.  The cost of labor is increasing, and the cost of materials has been increasing.  Not too many years ago, the Department of Public Utilities spent more than the revenues brought in, to the tune of ten million dollars or so.  They couldn’t collect as much as they spent because some of the utility rates were capped by statute.  Although the Department of Public Utilities has reserve funds that are for this purpose, the funds are mandated to be at a certain level.  The extra money that the DPU spent depleted these founds and the DPU began strategizing how to both replenish these funds and to pay for the increased cost of the commodities going forward. The DPU, as with any business for that matter, cannot exist if it spends more money than what it receives.

    To make matters more confusing, there is something called a “profit transfer” that occurs.  This is a transfer from the utility accounts to the general fund.  I have asked about this and it has been described as a franchise fee.  It was further explained that this money is returned to the DPU for utility capital projects.  Nevertheless, on the surface, it doesn’t look good.  It looks like the DPU is making so much money that they have to transfer the extra money to the General Fund.  If this is the case, why would the DPU have to raise rates to be sustainable? 

    The Board of Public Utilities recently voted to do away with the “Profit Transfer” because it does not accurately describe the situation.  Will it change anything?  No, because this money will now be spent on capital projects directly instead of going to the general fund and then being returned to the utility department.  I recommend that citizens vote YES on Ordinance 758, to remove “profit transfer” from the County Charter.

    Customers will start seeing a “Demand Charge” on their electricity bills.  The “Demand” is the peak electricity usage, averaged over a one-hour period, for the month.  For example, a 30-day month consists of 720 hours.   Each of these 720 segments will have a power draw associated with it.  During the night, or when people are at work, the electrical draw will be pretty low.  If a family has a car charger, the demand of the car charger could be around 20kW.  If this car charger is on for one hour, and there are other loads that add up to 5kW for that same hour, the demand is 25kW.  The demand charge is $1 for each kW in the highest one-hour period.  In the above example, a $25 demand charge would be applied over and above the monthly electricity bill.  I voted against the Demand Charge, but it passed. 

  • League of Women Voters Guide Q&A

    1. Q. Describe your qualifications and experiences that have prepared you to serve as a County Councilor.
      A. I’ve been a member of the Board of Public Utilities
      for the past 6 years. In that time I have interacted
      with County Council, different boards, and County
      Legal. I’m familiar with the structure of County
      Government.
    2. Q. The community consistently ranks affordable housing and economic development as top priorities for the County. What actions can the County Council take to address them?
      A. There is not as much available land as there are empty buildings. LANL is hiring more people and they will need places to live. I will work with the Council and LANL to investigate opportunities to work together to provide more
      housing. Building higher structures in the place of empty buildings might be an option.
    3. A. This year, the County is updating its Comprehensive Plan, which articulates the County’s vision for land use, housing, transportation, economic development, and environmental stewardship. One of the most pressing issues is the question of growth. How much and where do you think the County should grow? What quality-of-life tradeoffs do you think the community will need to consider?
      A. The County does not have many options in terms of accessing more land. We are surrounded by DOE, tribal lands, and BLM. We can work with LANL to see if there are mutually beneficial opportunities. In terms of population growth,
      yes, there are trade-offs. More traffic, possibility for more crime. More kids in schools, altering the teacher-student ratio. Strained medical care. Growth is inevitable and these will be some of the challenges we will have to face.
    4. Q. The County’s budget includes a substantial number of unfunded Capital Improvement Projects. How would you prioritize which projects to fund?
      A. Prioritize the projects that benefit the highest number of people and resonate with the community.

  • Why I Am Running

    Dear Friends:
    I have been a part of the Los Alamos community for 13 years and work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. For six of those years I have served on the Board of Public Utilities, so I am familiar with County government. Los Alamos is a special town with great people, but I am concerned that our County Council is only hearing from a small part of the community. With that in mind, I have decided to run for County Council, with hopes to represent a greater portion of the community.

    It is a challenge to communicate all that the County is involved in. They have a website with lots of information, published agendas, and studies from consultants, but information that is relevant to the community often gets buried and is difficult to find. More often than not, the County makes a decision and the community learns about it later on. Examples include the new electricity demand charges that the Council passed (and I opposed), the Trinity Road Diet, and the $2.1M camera surveillance system.

    I want to hear from the people of Los Alamos concerning what is most important to the community. I look at issues with a very broad perspective. We don’t solve problems, we trade problems. Every issue and proposed solution needs to be weighed for unintended consequences.

    If I am elected to County Council, I will:

    1. Vote against initiatives where the Council is trying to dictate how people live.
    2. Question unfunded and intrusive County mandates
    3. Work with the building office to create a more fair and consistent permit process.
    4. Oppose unnecessary increases in taxes, fees, or rates.
    5. Represent, communicate with, and engage the larger community for Council decisions.
    6. Approach all issues holistically