We had expected the county to be fair with our town. Instead, Planning & Development and its director have been anything but. This is the latest update concerning a poorly conceived development project in Los Alamos.
It is an issue that will have health and safety consequences for our town, especially because of a one-lane section of Private Road to which the developer has been given access. With all the additional traffic generated by 12 homes, only six of which would have garages, P&D chose not to do a traffic study, and yet, they fault our more realistic estimates of traffic hazards because we did not perform a formal study.
Next, P&D found a way, on technical grounds, to keep our local Los Alamos Planning Advisory Committee from meeting on this issue. Until now, LAPAC had customarily met with townsfolk to vote on significant developments here.
Lastly, although not required to recuse on purely legal grounds, wouldn’t it have been morally and ethically preferable if two planning commissioners had done so, as one admitted to years of financial connections with the developer and the other told of having a house built by him?
Over 200 Los Alamos residents signed a petition to have Mr. Ruffino’s development reconsidered to make it safer. His agent, from TW Land Planning, disdained and dismissed our community’s concerns by saying that people usually sign petitions without understanding the issues. This lack of appreciation and respect for our town is, regrettably, typical also of the developer and of P&D.
Seth Steiner
Los Alamos
