The Town of Minto will assist community groups with financing an Electronic LED sign to be placed at the front of the Palmerston Lions Heritage Park.
Discussions around a sign for that location began with the Palmerston Downtown Revitalization committee in 2014, notes business and economic manager Belinda Wick-Graham at the July 3 Minto council meeting.
At the time, she explained, several groups were interested in coming together to fund a sign but cost was a concern when there was no commitment from a key funder to move the project forward. In late 2017, Palmerston Lions Club president Bob LaCombe approached the town to see if there was interest in exploring the project again. A committee was struck with Al Toner representing the Palmerston Legion, Bob LaCombe representing the Lions, Councillor Ron Elliott representing the town and Wick-Graham representing the Palmerston Downtown Revitalization Committee.
“We thought this was important for the town too,” said councillor Ron Elliott. “In fact we could do special announcements, for example that a road was being closed in an emergency … we have a heatwave people can go to such and such and cool down, that kind of stuff.”
A quote request was issued and closed on June 25 with quotes received from Cox Signs, Libertevision and Raynbow Signs. The Raynbow Signs submission was late, however the quotation states, “If quotations arrive after the above deadline, the town reserves the right, entirely at its discretion, to give or not give such quotation consideration,” Wick-Graham noted in her report. Council approved the committee’s recommendation to accept the Raybow Signs quote of $33,053 for a monument-style LED sign.
To date the PDRC, Lions Club and Palmerston Legion have committed $5,000 each. Blessings-to-You has committed $3,500 and the Palmerston Snow Kings have agreed to provide $2,000, bringing the total commitment to $20,500.
Wick-Graham noted two businesses/organizations provided “verbal commitment” to rent the sign weekly for five years at rate of $25 a week, which would bring in $13,000 over five years.
Council agreed to the committee’s request the municipality bridge the financing gap and put money from these two commitments directly toward paying the loan over five years. Additional funds from weekly rentals will be put into a reserve fund for future needs of the signs.
