Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ

Skip to content

Squamish's green thumb under the microscope

Community

Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵcame under the critical gaze of two judges this week as representatives of the Communities in Bloom program arrived Sunday (July 17) to begin rating the town and its various environmental and development initiatives.

"There are eight different criteria that we look for in each community we visit," said Marc Lalonde, one of the pair of judges sent to evaluate Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵas part of the national program. "First we look at tidiness, then community involvement, environmental initiatives, urban forestry, parks and green spaces, floral displays and heritage preservations.

"We look at all those aspects and each component is judged separately and it is a combination of all those eight criteria that make the sum," said Lalonde, who hails from Quebec.

Communities in Bloom is a Canada-wide program aimed at fostering greater civic pride within communities. Cities and towns that want to participate in the program have to register to have judges visit and evaluate the community. Participating communities are then given a rating out of five stars and can compare themselves against other areas in the same category.

"The categories are based on total population," said Lalonde. "This category is the 10,000 to 20,000 population category."

There are eight other communities registered in the same population category as Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵthis year, according to Lalonde, who has judged both larger cities and smaller communities such as Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵin the seven years he has been a judge with Communities in Bloom.

"It's a very different experience judging a small community and a large community," he said. "The larger cities have more complex issues and there is more politics involved, while the smaller communities are less formal and the initiatives are more grass roots.

"Both are different," he said. "But, it is very pleasant to judge a smaller community. We get to see a broad range of issues that communities are dealing with."

The judges arrived in town at about 1:00 p.m. Sunday, and even before they were taken to their rooms at the Howe Sound Inn, they were out taking in the sights of a sunny Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵday. Following a bike ride through the town with Bob Brant, the judges were treated to a late afternoon reception at the nearly completed Adventure Centre on Highway 99. But, Lalonde said he was anxious to continue the evaluation.

"Typically we spend from about a day and a half in the smaller communities to more than two days in larger communities," he said. "We have to try and schedule things pretty rigorously. It is usually a pretty big challenge."

The results of Squamish's evaluation will be revealed at a gala symposium and awards ceremony in Saskatoon in September. Last year, Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵearned four out of five stars from the program.

[email protected]

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks