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Frances and Mike Meier inside BARRANCA MESA March 10, 2021, 4:38 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...restore a cinema theater downtown, ...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote additional residential development in the downtown, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Demolish south wing and add residential component; convert CB Fox Kidz to residential; keep north wing as commercial/retail.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Keep existing layout but convert one theater and concession stand to be a new Tween Center (middle school aged youth) with a theater for movies or other stage acts, as well as a black box theater.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? Yes
What other comments would you like to submit? The article in "The Daily Post" by Sara Scott and David Izraelevitz convinced me that, by buying these two properties, the County will be in the strongest position to develop them in a way that will be of the most benefit to County residents.

Name not shown inside WESTERN March 10, 2021, 3:47 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
None of the above because, as a matter of policy, the County should not use financial resources to motivate redevelopment
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - Allow outside interests to redevelop the property into a modern use. The County tries to run the town like a Military Base which clearly IS NOT WORKING.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - So odd that the County fought this facility when initially proposed. The County needs to stay out of the redevelopment.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? No
What other comments would you like to submit? With LANL moving significant fractions of the workforce to Santa Fe and Rio Arriba County, the schools will be losing their "cash cow" tenant on their dilapidated properties over the next few years. The County has continually frustrated private development as evidenced by the poor retail offerings and abandoned look of the town and White Rock.

Establishing a grocery monopoly on County/School property hasn't been the phenomenal success that was promised by previous, esteemed Councilors.

Housing development on the Middle School property was being discussed 25 years ago. That progress is certainly astounding.

We are underwriting a hotel/meeting center that should offer several part-time jobs as modest service positions. The recently announced LANL lease on a meeting space in Santa Fe might be a negative impact to this project - no surprise to the average citizen watching the ham-handed Council actions.

Remember the money spent to promote air travel via the Los Alamos Airport? That seems to have not had the miraculous impact on the local economy that was predicted.

The exciting part could be the lawsuits against these current actions. We can no doubt chuckle at some more dumb hats placed on the Oppenheimer and Groves statues while we wait for all of the enormous benefits to roll into the community.

Seems like only churches and banks are the viable, enduring businesses under the standards of our County Council.

Mark Rayburn inside NORTH COMMUNITY March 10, 2021, 3:42 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...restore a cinema theater downtown, ...construct a Tween Center (an activity center for middle school aged youth), ...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide additional community activity spaces
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - With a remodel, use the first-floor space for retail sales: clothing store, sporting goods (skiing, mtn biking, camping, backpacking gear, etc.). Convert the second floor to small business office space for those that only experience small volume traffic.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - Keep one theater for movies, one for live theatrical/dance productions & concerts. The rest for consessions accomodating those activities in order to keep like-use businesses together.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? Yes
What other comments would you like to submit? With the CB Fox building dead-center, and the theater sitting on the west end of our primary drive-through part of town (Central Avenue), please do not allow either of the properties to become "storage" facilities. Those spaces both need to be purposed with active, customer-centered, businesses that encourage local as well as out-of-town purchasing and use.

Name not shown inside TSIKIMU March 10, 2021, 3:13 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Demolish entire building and construct new residential and new commercial/retail same site
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - wait and see if they can re-open
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? No
What other comments would you like to submit? If the county buys both buildings and DOES NOT keep them for retail space, you are just giving the small businesses of the town a big smack in the face. Making them for for commercial uses or office spaces is 100% is stupid. We need to think in common sense here. With CB Fox gone and Belles I feel that Smiths is just going to take over the town. This extra county money could be used to help small business to make a law to keep landlords from raising rents in the old buildings. A lot of us are paying rent equal to a space that is on the Santa Fe Plaza. CB Fox sold out for personal gain, so why would the county buy it for more money? The movie theater got closed for COVID so why not wait until we can see movies again. Maybe this is not the time to be buying up buildings that just got hit from COVID restrictions for only 1 year (not cb fox). If they become office/meeting rooms are going to be made and making them office spaces when the majority people might be working at home for a long time. CB fox building could be torn down but then rebuild like 3-4 new small business spaces. Maybe the county could make a cap on how much landlords can keep raising rental rates or lower property taxes on these buildings that are old (1980 and older). It seems like the county does not care for all of the small business because this is the reason landowners use to raise our rents. When the county buys property, then here come offices for the schools or the county employees. ugg, it is like the 529 bond again. How can we keep our town alive if the county just decides to purchase building that only been vacant for 1 year? Can we look at these older building and help everyone make them nicer for customers to come into the stores. When you drive on central what do you see; banks, credit unions, closed up store fronts, medical offices, lanl offices, a few shops, the post office, a restaurant, and Starbucks. If you take CB fox and make it a parking garage, who is going to use it? the people working in offices? Probably. Will that bring in customers? No, cuz there is no shopping around it. When you drive on Trinity what do you see; a rotting hotel with an empty smiths parking lot and old gas station, smiths, dominos, more doctor offices, a walk in bank, sonic, McDonalds, and more office spaces. Those of us who have made their business from a passion are always getting the short end of the stick and get shoved in the corner and then have to close because the county does not have their back to support them. And WHY, since the county has money to spend on 2 buildings that have been empty for 1 year is not common sense. The county should BUY the old SMITHS and HILLTOP HOUSE. Those are sitting there empty for, ummm, how long maybe 10+ years? And THAT is what the county wants visitors first impression of our town to be? OMG it looks so horrible to see when anyone comes to our town for the first time and maybe that is enough of a bad image and they might not come back. Buy those and tear them down and just watch all the retail businesses that would love to move into. Or lets just leave the most ugliest thing when you come into town just rotting away. Once again, use some common sense county board. There are so many buildings/land that have been empty for 5+ yrs or longer and start there and not buy 1 building that became empty due to the pandemic and buy 1 other "just because" and pay more then what they sold it for is just not right in any common sense.

Name not shown inside WHITE ROCK March 10, 2021, 2:38 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
None of the above because, as a matter of policy, the County should not use financial resources to motivate redevelopment
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. None of the above.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. None of the above.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? No
What other comments would you like to submit? I would have liked to have been able to comment on the first question "Do you think that the County should use financial resources to"
My "none of the above" response does not accurately reflect my belief regarding public fund usage.

Name not shown inside DOWNTOWN RESIDENTIAL S March 10, 2021, 2:23 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...restore a cinema theater downtown, ...construct a Tween Center (an activity center for middle school aged youth), ...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote additional residential development in the downtown, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide additional community activity spaces, ...provide a permanent location for food pantry storage and distribution
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Demolish entire building and construct new residential and new commercial/retail same site
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Keep existing layout but convert one theater and concession stand to be a new Tween Center (middle school aged youth) with a theater for movies or other stage acts, as well as a black box theater.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? Other - Yes but with a time limit on how long they long they have to turn them over to new owners

Name not shown inside WHITE ROCK March 10, 2021, 2:23 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...construct a Tween Center (an activity center for middle school aged youth), ...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide a permanent location for food pantry storage and distribution
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - Let the market decide the price, not developers from outside of Los Alamos who donate to county councillors.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - Let the market decide, not people who donate to our county councillors.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? No
What other comments would you like to submit? We need to change the way the police are rewarded. Instead of for arrests but not convictions, we need to have them reduce crime, based on reports, and not let Brenda Gurule or any police officer decide whether or not they can take the report. We also need to have the county councillors set the priorities based on public input. We need safer streets. We need to make sure we continue to pay for lower cost garbage removal and possibly look at a methane/trash based power plant for electricity like Ohio has. We do not need to buy up religious houses of worship and have the county become a developer or violate the anti-donation clause either. I think it would be a good idea to allow hunters to have one day every quarter to take out coyotes and any other predatory pests.

Windy Earls outside Community Boundaries March 10, 2021, 1:40 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote additional residential development in the downtown, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide additional community activity spaces, ...provide a permanent location for food pantry storage and distribution
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Minor changes. First floor remains commercial/retail space. Second floor converted to apartments or residential loft.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Convert one theater to be a new community space (possible idea: meeting room for rent) plus a new space for LA Cares (local food pantry) to operate
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? No
What other comments would you like to submit? The options to promote growth are good, however the county should not purchase property, make changes, and re-sell.

Instead the county should work with a developer to encourage this type of progress and growth to meet the needs of the community. The county should purchase only facilities the county will run as a county project. The county should not purchase properties and do the redevelopment and then sell the properties again. This creates unnecessary expense and churn. Let the real estate developers do the development all to better meet the needs of our community.

Name not shown inside BARRANCA MESA March 10, 2021, 12:38 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...restore a cinema theater downtown, ...promote opportunities for small businesses to own their own retail space, ...promote additional residential development in the downtown, ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide additional community activity spaces, ...provide a permanent location for food pantry storage and distribution
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - I like parts of all the scenarios except for street-level housing.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - I'd prefer two theaters and one meeting space/performance venue. I'm ambivalent about the Tween Center.
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? Yes
What other comments would you like to submit? Almost all of the scenarios are feasible. While I love the idea of downtown residential space, I do NOT think any should be ground level. Ground level should be commercial only. I'd only want a theater in the Fox building IF there's no theater space at Reel Deal. I DO like your theater layout idea w/entrance but used instead for a mall with small shops for local vendors, crafts, etc. Whenever I travel, those are the types of areas that draw me in. The skylights are great (gotta invite in our NM sunshine AND plants)! And I love the patio garden idea for a restaurant if you build new.

Currently, I do not linger downtown or browse or meander or meet friends (well, even pre-Covid) because, frankly, it has a personality problem. I adore the Mesa Public Library/Fuller Lodge area (and the Pond), so I'm not hard to please. It would be wonderful if the facades of the buildings mimicked or complemented the look of the lodge or the library. They are what make this town what it is considering that the Manhattan Project buildings were utilitarian and temporary. If Fuller Lodge/Big House/Bathtub Row architecture were to define the look of downtown, it'd be cohesive, interesting, historic, and pretty.

I'm a homebody, but I can be dragged out (quite often) to shop/eat/walk/gather if the area feeds my senses. Whatever you do, make it aesthetically pleasing. I would love, love, LOVE to spend time in a downtown area. Much of my life has been spent in downtown Annapolis, La Jolla, Salt Lake City, and European towns/cities. If it's pretty, I'll spend time there. And if I spend time there, I'll spend money there. And if I spend money there, everyone wins, right?

For the Reel Deal building, scenario 2 is my favorite. (With regard to the Tween Center, I don't have an informed opinion although it does seem far from the middle school.) The one thing I miss (besides friends) from where I lived before is a fabulous food bank/charitable donations drop-off place. From my time volunteering at this one (and watching it be built) in Tracy, CA, I'm not sure the Reel Deal space is the right one (although I agree a space is definitely needed). Here's a link: https://tracyinterfaith.org/. Definitely a similar idea to LACares (100% volunteer-run and faith-based but not dominant), the organization's new building provided drive-through services for charitable donations, desk space for those determining need to speak with those receiving aid, pantry space for donations/farm surplus, etc. If something like that can't be done and a better-than-nothing space could be created in the old theater, then sure. However, I don't love the use of downtown space, the lack of privacy for patrons, the loss of a theater space. If I had my druthers, the Reel Deal site'd be two theaters, a tween center, and a meeting room/art gallery/performance space with a NEW site, more private and better suited for charitable drop-offs/services, for LACares.

Name not shown inside DOWNTOWN RESIDENTIAL S March 10, 2021, 12:10 PM

Do you think that the County should use financial resources to... (check all that apply):
...construct a Tween Center (an activity center for middle school aged youth), ...promote more downtown activity such as restaurants and shops, ...provide additional community activity spaces, ...provide a permanent location for food pantry storage and distribution
CB Fox Building: Choose your favorite scenario. Minor changes. First floor remains commercial/retail space. Second floor converted to apartments or residential loft.
Reel Deal Theater: Choose your favorite scenario. Other - keep one theater, have pantry for LA Cares, tween center
Do you think the County should purchase the two buildings? Yes
What other comments would you like to submit? Would like the county to purchase the buildings. CB Fox to be used for small businesses, not sure about housing. I stated above what I prefer for Reel Deal.
My concern, tho, is end cost but at the same time it will be a disaster if a developer takes over - i.e., what happen to MariMac and with that horrible Smith MarketPlace Complex.