Item PH26653 - Fundraising for Millennium Clock - reaching the target

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Community : Bradford
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Description : The H.E.A.R.T. Committee was in Council on Tuesday night, to present an update on its Millennium Clock Tower Project. The Committee showed Council a revised budget which indicated that, even without an $11,000 provincial Millennium Grant, fundraising had exceeded expectations - but that upgrades the project, including an improved carillon system and a larger granite obelisk, had increased the expected expenditures. Fundraising now stands at $98,975 including $33,725 in cash collected for names to be engraved on the obelisk, another $9,250 pledged for the same purpose, $9,0000 from the Mayor's Golf Tournament, an $11,000 federal Millennium grant, and $12,000 in "seed money" from the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury. Expenses grew from the initial $82,000 to $96,932, which include $19,750 for structural steel, $19,504 for the granite obelisk, and $46,478.96 for the clockworks. The clock itself had originally been budgeted at $25,000. With the upgraded sound system, and with the U.S. exchange factored in, H.E.A.R.T. Chair Jamie Vins admitted that the earlier figure had been underestimated. Vins noted that while the federal grant has yet to be approved, the Committee has not wholly given up on the provincial funding. The project was deemed ineligible because it will be completed in 1999 rather than the year 2000; in fact, parts of the project, including landscaping, won't be completed until the spring. With more corporate sponsors still to be approached, and more donations of materials and labor possible, for the excavation and foundation work, the final costs may be lower than the figures presented. Councillor Marty Toombs congratulated the committee on its efforts, but suggested that, in the case, H.E.A.R.T. should return the Town's seed money. "I'm personally in favor of the project," Toombs said, "however, given the circumstances today, I'm wondering if it isn't in the best interests of the H.E.A.R.T. Committee...to turn that $12,000 back to the Town." Mikki Nanowski, chair of the Downtown Revitalization Committee, a sub-committee of H.E.A.R.T., suggested that the Town's contribution would pay for engraving the Town crest, a history of the municipality, and the names of the Councillors onto the obelisk, "so Council will go down in history."