County outlines 2025 strategic leadership plan with five goals and 22 objectives

Councilor Susie Heffelman presented the Los Alamos County Council's 2025 Strategic Leadership Plan at the Board of Public Utilities work session on April 2, outlining five overarching goals and 22 objectives intended to guide county operations and budgeting over the coming year.

Heffelman said the plan closely mirrors the 2024 edition but includes several changes made after a fall 2024 national community survey. "We took that into account as we were developing our strategic plan," Heffelman said, and she told the board the survey ranked efficient, effective and reliable services, local business support, housing, fiscal stewardship, and communication and engagement among top concerns.

The document organizes work into five goals: quality governance, operational excellence, economic vitality, quality of life, and environmental stewardship. Heffelman highlighted a few specific updates in the presentation: adding an objective to link educational, arts, cultural and historical amenities to economic vitality, renaming the council's DEI priority to "inclusion, access and belonging," and adding explicit language about continuing improvements and infrastructure asset management.

Under quality governance, Heffelman said the plan stresses communication, intergovernmental relations and fiscal stewardship, and she noted the county's budget books had been released the same day. On operational excellence, the plan adds emphasis on anticipating future needs and on employee recruitment and retention.

Economic vitality received focused attention in the presentation. Heffelman cited housing and downtown revitalization as central objectives and said the county is partnering on projects to preserve affordable units and pursue incentives that could spur private development in downtown and in White Rock. "We're gonna partner with a local developer to guarantee that 87 units'will remain affordable through a deed restriction that will last 20 years," she said, while noting that many development parcels remain private and subject to market constraints.

On environmental stewardship, Heffelman incorporated targets tied to the county's climate work: a stated goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for the county by Feb. 1, 2050, with interim reductions (30% and 80% milestones referenced in the plan) and a longer-term reference to phasing out natural gas in county facilities by 2050 and in the broader community by 2070.

Board members pressed for implementation details during the discussion. Member Stromberg and others asked how objectives would be measured; Heffelman said department directors set specific metrics that will be tracked on an electronic performance dashboard and committed to provide those measures on request. Other commissioners urged more delegation to boards and commissions for workload management and suggested a high-level budget summary showing major spending categories for public clarity.

Why it matters: the plan sets the council's priorities ahead of budget hearings and shapes how staff and boards will be asked to align projects, capital work and community engagement over the next year. Elements such as housing affordability, asset maintenance and climate goals directly influence capital requests and operational choices the Board of Public Utilities will encounter in upcoming budget and infrastructure discussions.

Looking ahead: Heffelman said the plan will continue to evolve and that council expects to use the performance dashboard and boards and commissions to help implement and refine objectives.