(Spencer)– The city of Spencer is debating whether or not to sign on with a program that could help land grants for various beautification projects. The Hometown Pride Program was a topic of discussion at Monday’s city council meeting. Councilman Brian Balk said he’s skeptical about it…
“I think we have a lot of great organizations locally that we work with already that probably can assist us in this and this is just overlap to the tune of $38,320 over the five years. I’m struggling to see the benefit of it, personally.”
Fellow councilman Tom Nelson looked at it from another perspective, saying city participation in the program would be vital to getting people already in the community who have expertise in grant writing, more involved…
“How do we get them on this committee if we don’t participate? That’s a completely unknown as well. At least if we participate in this, and we get a person involved and they do their job, then from what you’re seeing, Dan, then we should be able to recoup that money, plus some, in the way of grants for a variety of opportunities.”
City Manager Dan Gifford says he’s aware of other cities that are involved in the program and had success from it…
“Obviously there’s no guarantees in any of that because a lot of pieces have to fall into place, but it has worked for other communities and so the potential is there.”
The council Monday evening wound up tabling the matter to their July 1st meeting for further research.
