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