MONTE VISTA— The future of the City of Monte Vista’s logo is up in the air and new ideas were explored during a work session held last Tuesday evening, Sept. 18. City Manager Forrest Neuerburg explained it has been a cost-saving measure in city hall to utilize black/white printing whenever possible and the current logo doesn’t work well in black/white.
Members of council reviewed potential new city logos designed by former employee Rachel Maston, who also recently created the new San Luis Valley logo for Valley Initiative Partners. She presented five logo options, with each presented in full-color, grayscale and black/white. Council reviewed the five and eliminated two, leaving three for Maston to continue working on for later consideration.
Council also reviewed 14 potential taglines to accompany the new logo, proposed by Neuerburg and former Assistant to the City Manager Azarel Madrigal. Council members noted they liked “Small Town, Big Ideas” and “Creating History” both favorites of Councilor Kathleen Ellithorpe’s, “Where you make your home,” a favorite of Mayor Pro-Tem Victor Sigala and all councilors worked together to modify the proposed “Transparent, Honest, Inspiring and Faith” to “Honest and Inspiring.” A final selection was not made, but councilors agreed to continue brainstorming new ones or modifications to the proposed taglines.
Mid-year budget amendments were presented to council as well. Finance Director Jennifer Signs and Neuerburg gave the amendments, which were a mix of unavoidable expenses and unexpected donations and unclassified revenue.
The Monte Vista Kids Connection received unexpected donations this year which has allowed for a decrease in use of General Fund transfers in the amount of $53,000 along with these donations; $31,775 has been received in restricted donations for the MVKC to use to make building improvements to the facility. The Monte Vista Police Department received a grant for $15,000 for their K9 program and the City received a GOCO grant for$30,000 for the Faith Hinkley Veterans Memorial Park, adding to the $10,000 fund balance to complete the park projects. $1,299.78 in unclassified revenue was utilized in the Vali Theater fund to pay for expenses there, allowing the city to plan for closing the theater fund in 2019. The Vali Theater Board has largely been handling finances independently. Signs stated the City intends to continue paying utilities out of the general fund for the theater and at a separate theater board meeting, City Clerk Unita Vance stated the city will no longer be providing payroll services for the theater’s two employees in 2019.
The City received $33,250 in state grant funds and $750 in tap fees which will be used to handle unexpected expenditures in the water fund, including $13,700 in liability insurance, $4,500 in professional services and $6,800 in acquisition of water rights and five other charges for travel, supplies and equipment. The sewer fund will also use $40,300 in unrestricted fund balances to cover unexpected expenditures, including another $13,700 in liability insurance, $20,000 listed as “storm drain capital outlay” and several other expenses.
Signs stated overall “the water and sewer balances are really healthy,” and Neuerburg pointed out the burden constantly changing federal requirements  have placed on the city’s water and sewer systems and staff, but stated the automated mapping systems of the water and sewer lines are so far in the budget for 2019 which should help relieve some of the issues with tracking repairs and finding and predicting potential problems.
The city also had a handful of other unexpected expenses, including $4,975 in council dues and subscriptions, largely to the Council of Governments (COG), but Neuerburg stated that investment has paid off as the COG recently gave the city a mini-grant. Other expenses included maintenance issues to vehicles and equipment and building repairs and maintenance, including $6,000 to the Guzlow building being used by consultant Ron Douglas as a business incubator and currently housing Widowmaker Apparel, $11,500 to Ski-Hi in professional services and capital outlay and other expenses including benefits to employees. Neuerburg stated employee salaries were largely budgeted appropriately but benefits like health insurance were not.
Neuerburg also discussed the difficulties in budgeting the police department’s equipment, with prices for things like police radios rising to nearly $5,000 each because of a proprietary chip included in them, while they were only about $3,000 two years ago. A lot of the equipment also requires regular testing by state and federal regulations, with Neuerburg using the example of tasers, which require discharging cartridges and adding to the expenses to fulfill these regulations. Neuerburg added he has heard input from several people encouraging the city and PD to seek Homeland grants for equipment, but those grants are three years out before they can be fulfilled and due to rapidly increasing prices, the applied for equipment prices would likely be outdated.
Signs added she had over 200 flags for budget filings or coding to review or correct, which required at least two entries per flag which she has completed over the last three months. Council thanked Signs for her hard work with Councilor Kathleen Ellithorpe noting the hard work has resulted in “a clean set of books.”
Lastly, the councilors reviewed a proposed Code of Ethics that would potentially be adopted for elected officials and appointees to city boards/commissions to adhere to. The draft code was largely borrowed from the town of Rifle, Colo. and modified for the needs of Monte Vista, Neuerburg explained. The code was sourced partially in best practices and partially by what is mandated through state statutes. It outlined policies and protocol for events, correspondence, endorsements and intergovernmental relations in addition to detailing “council conduct with one another,” “council conduct with city staff,” “council conduct with the public” in both meeting and in unofficial settings, “council conduct with other public agencies,” “council conduct with city boards and commissions” and “council conduct with the media” in addition to proposed sanctions for disruptive members of the public or councilors or city staff who act inappropriately.
The code also included 13 points of principles for proper conduct, six points of inappropriate conduct and a 16-point checklist for monitoring conduct. “It all comes down to respect,” the code stated, “Respect for one another…respect for the validity of different opinions…respect for the process…respect for the community that we serve.” The councilors agreed to review the draft code in more detail for potential modification or adoption at a later date.