About The Valley: LJ City Council - Kitchen of Kindness

Description: La Junta City Council Public Hearing Audience Participation Opportunity is Discussed with La Junta Mayor Joe Ayala and City Manager Rick Klein on About The Valley. Kitchen of Kindness Contact Info is Included.


Published: 02/12/2022
Byline: Hart

ATV City of LJ Kitchen of Kindness 2-7-22

Click Play to Listen.

A group of La Junta citizens spoke during audience participation at the most recent La Junta City Council meeting held on Monday, February 7, 2022. SECO News Publisher Adrian Hart spoke with city officials about the process of presenting or speaking to the city council during audience participation.

Podcast Interview Transcript:

SECO News: This is Adrian Hart with your Southeast Colorado News on seconews.org. It's "About The Valley" our podcast program dedicated to The People of Southeast Colorado and with me is City of La Junta City Manager Rick Klein and City of La Junta Mayor Joe Ayala. Now last night you had a city council meeting and we heard from some citizens who have come together to start working on the Kitchen of Kindness. Do you guys want to tell us:

A) The audience participation.

B) The Kitchen of Kindness and how folks can get involved to support this.

Ayala: Yeah, so anytime you guys want, anyone out there listening wants to get on our agenda you can get with Melanie or call the city and say, "Hey I want to talk about X, Y, and Z." If we put you on our agenda you may get more time, but if you just show up to the meeting you get five minutes for citizens participation. You can talk about anything you want, you come right up into the front of our council and you let us know your issues, your concerns, and if we can fix them, you know that's awesome, but we may just take that information with us and work on it and see how we can help out. But we can't do anything if we don't know about it, right?

Facebook is nice, text messages are nice, sending letters in the mail is nice, but the best way to get your issue to our attention is to show up to these meetings the first and third Mondays of every month. Show up for citizen participation and let us know what your issues are. 

This group, Kitchen of Kindness, reached out to me, they were having a meeting, they invited me to it, I showed up, told them come to this meeting, and so they did. They're really early on in their process. They are doing a great thing. They want to do a soup kitchen for the homeless and transients, and also citizens who may be down on their luck in the La Junta area as well. There was three of them, Rick can tell you who they are.

SECO News: So what they are hoping to do is establish a non-profit organization in order to facilitate this soup kitchen and then possibly expand it even to a shelter if possible.

Klein: There were three great Christians that came, Terry Smalling and his number is (719) 468-7157, Val Clark (719) 717-1264, and Kim Tomilson (719) 469-2774. These are just citizens, they see a need, they want to help, they're from different churches, I believe. 

Ayala: Yeah, different denominations, they're all Christians though. Another thing too is if we can't help you, or we don't have the resources to help, you're still talking to a big audience on Facebook and all these other places that stream, they may be able to help you.

Just like we're doing this interview with SECO News because more people will hear about it, they'll be able to offer resources, so just because council or the city may not be able to do anything for you, you're still reaching an audience that may be able to help you out.

SECO News: Exactly.

Klein: The city can't solve all the problems, but working together with the citizens, we can solve the major ones.

SECO News: Yup, and you guys can make a plan. So much of it is connecting the dots for people.

Klein: That's right, be connectors.

SECO News: That's it.

Ayala: And we get this all the time when something happens and people are like, "what should we do, what should we do?"

Tell them to come to a city council meeting, I think you've already told some people to come and that's awesome. If you have a complaint, get it to us and you know talking about it on social media is nice, but if you want to get something done about it, if you want to get some solutions for it, and get it actually accomplished bring it to us.

SECO News: That's right. If you don't report it to the authorities, you've got to look at this as just a way of reporting issues to the authorities. You guys are representing your delegation and trying to make those decisions that are best for our community, you need to be aware of what those issues are. 

Klein: And one of the endeavors we are going to be taking on is the zoning. We're going to be looking at that and see what we can do to put some flexibility in the zoning code for La Junta's future, and for the citizens, to help them out, so that they can build their wealth and make La Junta a lot better.

Ayala: When were those zoning laws done?

Klein: Well, we first did them in 1976, but the last time they were updated was 2005, I believe.

Ayala: So it's time.

SECO News: It's been sixteen years, so yeah.

Klein: I can look at some of the jobs within the listings of that and they're not even in there anymore. I mean, the world has evolved, and we need to evolve with it, it's time.

SECO News: So, keep the city council evolving participate in public participation. You guys bumped your meeting up an hour now, so instead of beginning at 7pm you start at 6 pm, and that public participation is early on the docket, so you want to show up early. 

Ayala: It's right away, so if you don't want to stay for the whole meeting, you just say your piece and then leave. You don't have to stay for the rest of the business, that's not a requirement, you just come up give your name and what your issue is and we'll see if we can help you and if not, hopefully someone else out there watching or listening can help out. 

SECO News: Alright, and if you guys want to get involved with the Kitchen of Kindness, if you can connect those dots and help them help our community, we've got your contact info, right here on seconews.org. (Terry Smalling - (719) 468-7157, Val Clark - (719) 717-1264, and Kim Tomilson - (719) 469-2774)

SECO News: Anything we want to add, Rick and Joe?

Klein: Thank you for your service.

Ayala: Thank you Adrian.

SECO News: Alright, thank you guys, I can tell we're going to do the Rick and Joe show more often here on About The Valley. For Rick and Joe with The City of La Junta, I'm Adrian Hart, on "About The Valley."

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About The Valley SECO News City of La Junta seconews.orgAbout The Valley: La Junta Council Feb 7, 2022

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