MONTE VISTA— Monte Vista City Council met for their regular meeting on Thursday, April 20th and went through a variety of business. Councilor Carol Shroeder was absent from the meeting but all other councilors and Mayor Debbie Garcia were in attendance.
Council recognized the service of City Manager Intern CJ Clayton before his departure. Clayton will soon be graduating with his Master’s Degree after being with the city for a year. Clayton thanked city council and the other city employees for the opportunity and the experience that he gained while working with the city but mentioned that he was sad to be leaving when City Manager Forrest Neuerburg is absent, stating “I owe a lot of gratitude to Forrest.” Clayton added “I’m truly grateful for all of the experiences that I have been a part of in this community… This hasn’t been an experience I will ever take lightly. This hasn’t been easy at times but it’s been way too fun at other times.” Clayton showed council one of his recent media projects, a video with three stages of the new Kids Connection construction that took place over the last year. The first stage was filmed in March of 2016 before construction began, the second was during the renovation and the third was in March of 2017 after the renovations were complete. Clayton added that the video was “a cool perspective on what can happen in a year and what we can accomplish when the community pulls together.”
Garcia proclaimed Arbor Day as Friday, April 28 on behalf of the city. Garcia’s proclamation noted the history of the holiday starting in 1872 as well as the environmental, economic and spiritual benefits of planting trees for the city. “In the City of Monte Vista I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands, and further, I urge all citizens to plant and care for trees to gladden the hearts and promote the wellbeing of this and future generations.”

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Kevin Wilkins, executive director of the San Luis Valley Council of Governments and Development Resource Group came before council to talk about the organization and “solicit the support” of council. Wilkins explained that he is “a reformed newspaper publisher,” now an economic developer and talked about his family history in the area. The development resource group is a non-profit that operates in parity with the council of governments, which is a quasi- governmental organization. The development resource group operates with a four million dollar revolving loan and has several loans in the Monte Vista area, including one for the new Proximity Malt, and they administer the state enterprise zones. The council of governments deals with the Broadband initiative, the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors Initiative, the DOLA mini grants, the transportation planning region, the transit council and the community action agency. The council of governments was recently reformed five years ago, and reformed the due structure based on population and property valuation. Wilkins hopes to get all of the 18 local communities back in good standing paying their dues. Garcia asked about the Enterprise Zone, and Wilkins explained that there will be some upcoming changes to these regulations. New projects in the enterprise zones will have to meet new guidelines. The downtown area in Monte Vista will have to reapply in 2018 with a budget strategy that reflects anticipated tax credits and have defined, specific impacts. Wilkins explained that the downtown should still qualify for the enterprise zone under the new requirements. Council voted unanimously to pay their 2017 dues of $6,511 to the San Luis Valley Council of Governments.
City Ordinance 879 was also tabled until the next meeting so City Administrator and Public Works Director Rob Vance could better publicize the standard operating procedure for requesting utility bill payment plans or requests for waiving fees. Vance and council addressed the concerns voiced in citizen comments and in the opinion section in last week’s Monte Vista Journal by explaining that the city does provide opportunities for making utility payment plans and “it’s not the city’s intention to take these away,” later adding “the city has no desire to eliminate the ability of citizens that are experiencing hardship to be able to come in and talk to us.” Vance explained that the utility billing clerk already provides payment plan options and the billing clerk can also seek alternatives from the public works director and city manager to potentially waive some fees or develop payments “the same day” instead of a citizen having to address council and make their personal financial situations a matter of public record. Vance also explained that the water and sewer are enterprise funds, which are subject to a fee structure that is designed so they “recoup their costs” and “we set fees and billings according to what our current needs are.” Vance explained that the ordinance was developed due to requests to waive tap fees, but the tap fees are the city’s only source of capital improvement funds. Providing payment plan options has also reduced the city’s delinquent accounts in the water and sewer billing from roughly $169,000 in the 2015-2016 year to only about $38,000 currently. “Just this week I’ve done three [payment plans]” Vance added, explaining that he does not want the hardship citizens to be a burden that becomes part of a public meeting.
MVPD Chief Evan Lopez reported that in the Month of March, there was one burglary report taken, eight thefts, 11 drug cases (mostly paraphernalia matters), one DUI, 226 citations largely due to seat belt enforcement, 1,606 total calls for service and 95 total reports taken. Lopez reported that the Easter Egg Hunt was very successful. There was some concern on the part of the police department over some recent severe car accidents in the city, including rollovers, cars driving onto sidewalks and cars driving into ditches, largely due to drivers’ mistakes at intersections, so he has been encouraging the officers to patrol intersections more heavily.
Mayor Garcia concluded the meeting by announcing that she will not be seeking re-election for mayor this year and encouraged members of the community who are genuinely interested in serving the community to consider running.