by melanie jacob
Journal Staff Writer
After weeks of preparations and cleaning up, the city can finally stop holding its breath as the 2014 Communities in Bloom (CIB) contest has finished making its way through Humboldt.
The two judges, Claire Laberge and Gerry Teahen, arrived here on July 15 with their profiles in hand and began their tour around the town. They completed their observations Wednesday and so far it seems they left with a smile.
"The highway is the first place that I've seen because it's my first time in Humboldt," said Laberge during the CIB luncheon. "It's a signature. It's welcoming to discover the town and when you discover the town, wow. It's very, very nice to see how much you have done to keep your heritage and what you have to use it in a new way."
The judges were taken to see everything from Water Ridge Park to the SARCAN facilities and all of it had something to show off. The community garden had been well tended and expanded, the flowerpot program was still blooming, and the tidiness efforts had grown to include an inter-community challenge with Kindersley.
"I think it went well. We have a very nice community with a lot of nice features," said Darrell Lessmeister, director of community and leisure services for the City of Humboldt. "We had a tidy week that really helped and did a really nice job of getting everything clean, tidy, and neat."
For the judges, however, the contest is about more than just which community looks the cleanest. They start by looking at six categories: landscape design, flower display, environmental projects, heritage conservation, urban forestry, and of course tidiness. With each of those categories, they also take into consideration what kind of community projects have been undertaken over the past year since the last CIB judging.
To help with this evaluation, each city or town provides the judges with a community profile that highlights areas of special interest and gives a bit of background. The package also includes the evaluation and results from last year so that the judges can see what kind of improvement have been made.
"Humboldt has really reaped the benefits of the CIB program," said Teahen. "Coming into Humboldt, the main highway is much cleaner, the businesses and establishments are much tidier. You've also got the Co-op and Boston Pizza, so more additions to the main entrance."
If anyone should know about Humboldt's improvement, it's Teahen. He had been one of the CIB judges for Humboldt a few years prior and said he's seen the strides Humboldt has made since. Nevertheless, he says that doesn't make his job any easier.
According to Teahen, they have a system where as soon as they enter a community, he and Laberge begin by taking notes and pictures. At the end of the day, they go to their rooms and write out detailed reports about all they had observed and witnessed. By doing so, they are able to differentiate between the communities later and dole out appropriate scores.
"Everyone likes to win and that's fine, but the program is not about winning," said Teahen. "If it was, we'd never succeed. It's about communities looking at themselves, realizing the community pride they have in themselves, developing that, and realizing they live in the best community in Canada."
According to Lessmeister, it seems that Humboldt did a good job of showing its community pride. It looks as though the judges were particularly impressed with the museum and art gallery, as well as the environmental efforts of Futuristic Industries, SARCAN, and the Good Neighbour Store.
Moreover, according to the judges, the partnerships the city had been developing also demonstrated good relationships between the city, businesses, residents, and organizations.
"I think they were impressed, especially with the partnerships we have been developing," said Lessmeister. "We won't know until we get the judging back in October. That's when we always get a lot of valuable information for improvement."
