By Nick Nunn
Staff Writer

The Bostwick City Council voted last week to implement its Investment Policy Statement for the Bostwick Cemetery Fund and also to go ahead with the abatement and demolition of the community center.

Last month, Bostwick Mayor John Bostwick proposed an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) as a way of combining the investments made by the cemetery fund and allowing them to generate more interest per year.

Currently, there is a sum of $69,220 in the cemetery fund. According to the council’s plan, $55,000 of that amount will be invested according to the policy statement that they approved, and $19,220 will remain as a cash investment.

The yearly interest earned by the investment strategy should increase the fund’s annual growth nearly 10-fold, according to Bostwick.

“They can generate between $4,500 and $5,000 a year on that money, whereas, right now, we generate $500 a year.”

Of the $19,220 that will be left as a cash investment, approximately $4,220 will be used in the year to come for beautification and maintenance projects in Bostwick’s cemeteries, particularly the Westbrook Cemetery.

“Once we decide what we want done and what we want to allot to spend, we’ll hold that back and invest the rest,” said Bostwick.

Last month, the Bostwick City Council also solicited bids for the abatement and demolition of the Community Center.
Among the 10 bids that they received, U.S. Waste Industries, Inc. provided the lowest bid at $69,500 for both services.
 Bostwick’s plan for financing this project involves borrowing the money and using funds from Bostwick’s LOST and SPLOST grants to pay off the loan.

“My thought is that we borrow the money from a bank for five or seven years. The payment in seven years would be about $10,000 per year,” explained Bostwick.

“What we have is approximately $15,000 to $20,000 a year coming in from LOST for 10 years, and SPLOST is going to be about $25,000 per year,” said Bostwick. “But we’ll verify those numbers before we do anything.”

The council members approved of going ahead with the plan as Bostwick outlined it.

Finally, the council discussed the problem of traffic in downtown Bostwick on the morning of the Cotton Gin Festival.

Angie Howard, explained that the worst time for people to try to enter or leave the closed sections of the street in their vehicles is during the parade, which takes place from approximately 10 a.m. to noon.

The City Council sent out a letter to the citizens after last month’s meeting outlining the problem.

“You can leave your residence,” Howard assured a concerned citizen of Bostwick, “but what we’re trying to make people understand is that, if you are going to have a lot of traffic because of visitors and family members, please make them aware of the barricades. The point of the letter is so that people can make plans and prepare before the day of the festival.”

Printed in the October 4, 2012 edition.