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Finance committee approves $15,000 Holtz Family Foundation grant for three conservation sites
Summary
The finance committee approved a resolution accepting a $15,000 grant from the Holtz Family Foundation to support ecological management work at Bloom Park, Holtz Island and Marshland Camps Preserve, augmenting existing city conservation funding derived from a landfill agreement.
The Finance Committee voted July 22 to accept a $15,000 grant from the Holtz Family Foundation to support ecological management at Bloom Park, Holtz Island and Marshland Camps Preserve. The committee approved the resolution by voice vote.
City conservation staff member Tom said the foundation contacted the city this spring and offered “10 to $20,000 available for conservation work” and that the city requested $20,000. “About a week or 2 ago, they sent us a $15,000 check,” Tom said.
Tom told the committee the grant will “augment the stuff that we're doing already” and be used at the three sites because of their historic and ecological connections to the Holtz family and the city's conservation work. He said Holtz Island is an undeveloped one-acre island on Little Muskegon Lake that was dedicated to the city in the 1970s, and that Marshland Camps Preserve (named for archaeological Native American camps found in the area) and Bloom Park were also among the selected sites.
Committee members asked whether the $15,000 fully covers the proposed work or whether the city would need to add funds. Tom said the grant is intended to augment existing conservation activities and programs. The committee discussed the source of city funding for conservation work and whether additional city funds would be needed; staff said conservation land management is funded through a landfill agreement rather than the tax levy.
Tom explained how the landfill agreement directs a percentage of landfill-related funds to conservation efforts. “All of our conservation efforts,” he said, “are funded by that. It is taxpayer money — it's just not tax levy money.”
The committee approved the resolution without recorded roll-call votes. The city will accept and program the $15,000 into the conservation land-management work at the three named sites.
The approval follows staff outreach to the Holtz Family Foundation after earlier restoration work at Bloom Park and reflects a mix of private philanthropic support and existing contract-derived municipal funding for conservation management.
