Town still blooming

Times Reporter

 

The vote is in. Strathmore once again won four blooms for Communities in Bloom, CIB. The provincial awards banquet took place in Provost, AB, on September 18. This is only the fourth year the town has been given blooms, and though the top award is five blooms, getting four, two years in a row isn’t bad.  

“The highest marks we got were for community involvement, and we got 101.5 out of 125, so that’s pretty good,” said Robert Breitwieser, a member of Strathmore Communities in Bloom.   

“They try to give us points for the things we’re doing well but also give us suggestions for the things we need to improve on. Those are areas our committee will be looking at and making recommendations for future initiatives, both with town council and town administration and also our committee and business in the community.” 

Some of the areas which were suggested the town work on are around commercial and industrial areas.  There are a lot of weeds, benches in poor condition, and just a general bit of untidiness. It was mentioned, however, that the commercial and industrial sectors have been good supporters of CIB, and Breitwieser said they have also been strong financial supporters. 

The board said the citizens of Strathmore are doing an outstanding job conserving water, energy and products, and the “incredible recycling centre” was also mentioned. 

Another bit of a sore point is the highway leading into Strathmore. 

“They did mention that the highway coming into town is bare and uninteresting and there’s poor signage, and something needs to be done to promote our town along the highway,” said Breitwieser. 

The lack of signage and promotion of the town along the highway has been mentioned in the past and is not a new subject to many people looking to help the town grow.  

Gray Park was said to be like an oasis on the prairies, but better weed control should be put into place. 

The heritage banners were noticed, and said to be a good start but that a little more should be done. 

“They suggested that the town needs to take initiative to form a heritage committee to declare heritage buildings in the town for preservation,” said Breitwieser.  

While it sounds like the committee had a lot of suggestions to work on, people must remember that four blooms is quite a good score to get. Comments were made about the impressive yards, and the different groups and organizations that have been extremely supportive of CIB. Strathmore was cited especially for environmental awareness, and with the suggestions from the CIB board, next year five blooms are not out of reach.