Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, is scheduled to review a memorandum of understanding concerning placing hanging baskets downtown.

During the Washington City Council’s June 13 meeting, Harold Robinson, executive director of the Washington Harbor District Alliance, informed the council about the offer from a woman who does not want to be identified. After expressing some concerns about the offer, council members asked city staff to evaluate the offer and develop the memorandum of understanding.

The memorandum calls for the donor/WHDA to furnish 15 to 18 plants, pots and the brackets for the utility poles. It also requires the donor/WHDA to groom the plants, when needed, on a monthly basis and replace plants and pots when damaged. The memorandum requires the city to water the plants, assume liability related to the hanging baskets, take them down when needed because of approaching storms or inclement weather and replace any plants and pots damaged by the city while watering the plants.

If approved, the agreement begins Aug. 1 and runs through Aug. 1, 2018. Before the agreement expires, all parties to it will review it and determine if it should be renewed.

“The WHDA has strived in the Memorandum of Understanding to make this project as cost effective as possible for the City,” reads the document. “There are, however, certain costs that cannot be avoided. None of the costs are mentioned but the City will have to assume some of the costs as in many of the other projects they are involved in.”

At its meeting earlier this month, the Washington Historic Preservation Commission, endorsed the project. Commission member William Kenner asked what type of material would be used to make the hanging baskets. Robinson said they would be made of wood or wicker.

At the June 27 council meeting, City Manager Bobby Roberson said the city likely would have to buy equipment to water the plants, he said. “My experience has been, when I was a consultant to Kinston, they started out at 6 o’clock in the morning and finished up about 8 (a.m.). … There’s a special device you have to order to actually go up — you can’t water those plants off a ladder. You’ve got to have a mechanism that goes up and comes down,” Roberson said then. “You can do it. We’ll need a golf cart and a water set-up in the back in order to do that.”