A new fund for a Two Rivers flowers program is in the early stages.
During last week’s meeting, Parks and Recreation Director Mike Mathis gave a presentation proposing the creation of a dedicated investment account with the Lakeshore Community Foundation to support the long-term, sustainable funding of perpetual care flowers and the community band.
Mathis says the foundation will take money invested for a purpose and put it into an investment account to help generate more income.
Mathis says the city’s money would go toward the cost of perpetual care for flowers.
“It can build up interest over time to get returns on those investments,” he explained. “And hopefully someday start given back a return that can go into the flowers.”
A minimum of $5,000 would be needed to start their fund, and the fund would have to reach $25,000 before money could be withdrawn.
Mathis noted that residents don’t want the city holding onto the money because of a previous incident, so the foundation would be a better place to invest it.
Councilmember Bonnie Shimulunas said she’s not a fan of the idea because the money can’t be controlled.
“The point is, something like perpetual flowers is this sort of expensive thing that is not the most reasonable thing to do with how prices shoot up,” she stated. “But it doesn’t mean that we should break our promise to these other people (who already invested in the program).”
Council Vice President Adam Wachowski says he’s in favor of the fund to keep the program in the future.
“We know the general fund can’t sustain this forever,” he noted. “So that the fact that we are taking this, and it may take some time. It may take, like Mike said, 15 to 20 years, but it may take less, too. It all depends on the fundraised money that comes in, and I think the sooner we can get it out of the general fund and can start tapping into this is going to better the general fund, obviously.”
The Two Rivers council didn’t approve anything since it was just a discussion item, but could approve the fund at a future council meeting.
The city council approved fully funding the perpetual care flower fund for another year after residents’ outcry over the program being stopped.
