The new fountain being built in front of the fire hall has a cost of $55,000, city staff said. That cost includes the entire project; landscaping, curbing and the fountain.
City administration put forward a report because of requests from citizens to find out what the project will cost.
CAO Wayne Staudt told Council at Monday's regular meeting that the funding is not new and came out of the MFA Refunds Reserve and carry-forward reserves from previous budgets.
"It was our own internal arborist that did the design," Staudt said. "So we didn't have any engineering or architectural fees incurred to design the fountain."
The project was done with public works staff.
"They were never assigned to this project," Staudt said. "When they had time from their other duties they went and did work on the fountain."
He said that's why it has taken two years to complete the project.
The fountain should be completed soon. Coun. Gerry Warner said he would hold off judgement on the esthetics of the fountain until it is fully operational.
"Just at the moment it doesn't look like much of a fountain for $50,000," Warner said. "But this might be unfair, because it's not fully operational. I could be wrong."
"The fountain has its costs, the curbing has its costs and landscaping has its costs," Staudt replied. "We still would have had landscaping, we still would have had curbing, we would have been without the fountain if the decision wasn't made to do the fountain."