A new Pueblo group with the goal of bettering the city laid out on Tuesday the first three initiatives it plans to pursue to improve the community.

Members of ProPuebloCo, whose stated mission is to "resolve to maintain the community as a wonderful place to live, work, operate a business, raise a family and retire," said the first steps they will take will be aimed at youth education, community cleanup and in discouraging vagrancy here.

Jack Rink, a member of the group who moderated a discussion where the group's plans were detailed Tuesday night in the Ryals Room at Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library, said ProPuebloCo wants to reverse the negative and interrelated impacts in Pueblo of a growing drug culture, an increasing vagrant population, crime, the flight of young people and constraining business development.

Youth education, the first of ProPuebloCo's initiatives that was discussed Tuesday, was chosen because Pueblo's youth are disproportionately impacted by drugs, the group said.

ProPuebloCo said it wants to work constructively with schools, churches and youth groups to provide suitable education on the matter and schedule meetings with area schools to provide data and offer assistance. It also wants to collaborate with the Pueblo City-County Health Department, the heroin task force and others to identify teaching materials.

As for community cleanup, the goal with that is to improve Pueblo's image and keep parks safe for children.

The group said it wants to sponsor cleanup events in town and already has one planned for April 22 in which people will meet at Nuckolls and Goodnight avenues and branch out to pick up needles at different Pueblo parks.

The final initiative the group said it wants to tackle right now is discouraging vagrancy to counter the online perception that Pueblo is a destination for vagrants.

Rink made it clear that this initiative was aimed at those who come to town because they feel they can get free services and access to drugs, enjoy a low cost of living and don't have any intentions of helping themselves, and not families or people in the community who truly need assistance.

Rink said ProPuebloCo will support legislative efforts to require residency requirements on benefits where possible, meaning some requirement that someone has been in the community for a certain amount of time before receiving benefits.

Rink also said the group wants to enlist the public to help change Pueblo's online reputation.

For example, the group wants citizens to correct online postings by commenting or replying to inaccuracies in those postings.

"Don't lie or mislead, just post facts," Rink said. "Don't put down Pueblo. We are still a great place to live, visit and vacation."

Rink said he comes across websites sometimes when Googling Pueblo that, for instance, will list Pueblo as one of the 10 cheapest places to live in the U.S.

He said ProPuebloCo will respectfully request that other community groups de-emphasize Pueblo's low cost of living, but that it's OK to mention it within context.

The 50 or so people who attended the meeting Tuesday night were given time to offer input and give their ideas about what the group should do.

Many spoke, and there were a variety of ideas tossed around.

There was lots of talk about fixing Pueblo's trash problem. Several people mentioned a project the Pueblo Police Department worked on recently to clean up an area of town that had a lot of litter.

One person mentioned talking to students and finding out why they want to leave town upon graduation and asking them what might attract them to stay.

There also were several mentions about having community events to bring people together such as neighborhood get-togethers, or a community picnic or dinner.

Following public comment, Rink said the meeting surpassed all of the expectations he had and said he was excited to get to work.

Rink said the group holds no illusions that these three initiatives will solve all of Pueblo's needs.

"However, they are all steps in the right direction," he said.

ryans@chieftain.com