MONTE VISTA - At the last Monte Vista City Council meeting members of the OptiMystics Citizens Action Group came before the Council with a presentation of their plans and to request funding. One of the group’s co-founders Adam Lock gave a presentation about the group. “The OptiMystics are a grassroot citizen action group. We formed to facilitate positive change here in Monte Vista. We are all very progress forward thinking people. We’re solution oriented. We’re able to dedicate a lot of time to what we’re doing and we have a very “can do” attitude that’s kind of our prerequisites,” said Lock.

Lock also shared the groups mission statement saying that they aid and assist both Monte Vista businesses and the city of Monte Vista, by positioning them for future growth. Their accomplishing of this goal includes revitalization efforts, improvements in the use of social media and creating a sense of place within the city.

“Our purpose simply lays out in a nutshell the multi-phased approach we’re utilizing to accomplish the goals and objectives including helping businesses with their online presence, working with successful existing entities such as Downtown Colorado Inc. (DNI) Exploring and obtaining available funding, increasing interest in shopping locally, as well as, attracting tourism and assisting the City in improving our overall curb appeal,” Lock told the council. He also showed them a slide with a list of people who have attended their meetings or have expressed strong interest in working with their group. He also showed them a slide with a timeline of their group telling them that the group officially formed in Feb. of this year.

“To date we’ve put together a ‘things to-do list,’ in the San Luis Valley, using Monte Vista as the Central hub. We launched a website and a social media presence. We’ve launched a successful Monte Vista is open for business campaign. We’ve worked actively with the Colorado tourism office, and we’re still working with them to update Monte Vista’s information. We’re consulting with Downtown Colorado Inc. and a lot of other things,” said Lock.

Lock then showed them some of their plans for a downtown beautification project. The first phase focusing on Adams street. “It includes getting the lighting turned back on, adding or fixing awnings, repairing building facades where needed. Painting of the facades, and the hanging of signage. It’s important to note that our intent with all of this is to provide to our businesses at little or no cost to them,” explained Lock.

Lock also explained that they hope to move on to their other phases of the project from here saying, “Simply put once we finish in the one phase, we want to expand outward from city central moving out in each direction. Additionally, at the end of each phase we are planning on having plaques mounted somewhere in that phase area noting such things as homework, who was involved and any major donors. It’s a simple way to recognize the people we’re working with and benefactors as we go along.

It’s important to note too that one of our underlying objectives is to spend as much money as we receive locally with local businesses here. It might not always be possible but it really is the focus of the group.”

Later in his presentation Lock also shared some of the actions the group has already taken including among many things working on formulating 3 to 5 day road trips with Monte Vista as the center, to be placed on the Colorado Tourism Office’s website. They are also researching an audio walking/driving tour of the historic region of Monte Vista. They also launched a website and social media presence through Facebook and Instagram, to engage and increase interest in their efforts.

 “To close our entire project relies heavily on our ability to obtain the funding. That includes $5,000 from the City of Monte Vista that was originally earmarked for the DCI project that is going to allow us to show matching funds for grants that our group is already ready to apply for with other organizations,” said Lock later adding, “The OptiMystics citizen’s group we respectfully ask the City of Monte Vista to grant our request to transfer that $5,000 allocated for downtown improvement to the Monte Vista Chamber of Commerce specifically for use for the projects that we’ve outlined.”

Later in the meeting a motion was made for a letter of credit to be issued to OptiMystics in the amount of $5,000 to foster grant opportunities. The motion was seconded and passed by all members of the City Council.

You can find out more about OptiMystics by visiting their website https://optimystics.org