Douglas City youth council approves pursuing placemaking grant for Rountree Park

The Douglas City Mayor's Youth Council voted April 21 to pursue a GSC youth placemaking grant to fund renovations at Rountree Park, including a commemorative bench and outdoor tabletop games.

Zipporia Wilcox, a youth council member who presented the proposal, said the project would honor mayor's youth council members with a bench bearing their names and add recreational elements and cleanup work to a damaged area of the park. "The main thing that we had agreed upon was creating a bench that had all the mayor's chief council's names on it as some type of honorary token," Wilcox said.

The council discussed an initial assessment visit and the need to prepare an outline and grant application for the GSC youth placemaking program. Wilcox said members conducted a site visit to determine priorities and would submit a project plan to the grant program for funding consideration.

The chair opened the floor for a motion to authorize pursuing the grant; the motion was seconded and carried on a voice vote with no opposers recorded. The meeting did not record a roll-call vote or list individual yes/no votes.

Council members did not specify a dollar amount in the presentation. Next steps outlined by the presenter include finalizing a project outline and submitting the placemaking grant application to the GSC youth placemaking program for review. The council did not set a timeline for the grant submission during the meeting.

The youth council will return to the item as staff or project organizers provide a formal grant application or further project details.