Communities in Bloom results announced next month

Two judges were in town on Monday to evaluate Westmount in the nation-wide floral competition. A luncheon was held that day by the City of Westmount in the art gallery of Victoria Hall to welcome David Hilton of Kamloops, B.C., and Chris Andrews of Toronto. The two volunteer Communities in Bloom judges later toured the community in order to rate Westmount for its natural beauty, community spirit, and environmental awareness.

Communities in Bloom is a national organization committed to fostering civic pride. It also promotes environmental awareness through community involvement and the challenge of national competition.

Andrews, who is semi-retired, was executive-director for 18 years of the Canadian Nursery Landscaping Association. Hilton is the parks manager for the City of Kamloops.

"We're being evaluated on our efforts, in terms of management and maintenance and improvement and innovation," said Mayor Karin Marks, who, along with city council, has been ardently promoting this year's competition— the first time Westmount has competing since its forced merger with the Montreal megacity.

"We'd like to think that we are doing well in those categories. But, if we are not doing as well as we should, we hope that they will point out some things where we can improve."

"We're looking for the same thing we look for in all the communities," Hilton told The Examiner. "Obviously you've got a strong heritage and history here — more so than some other communities — just because of the age.

"But we don't say that because we're going to a younger city, they've only been around 80 years," he added. "How are they treating those 80 years? So it's not about who's the oldest. It's about what they are doing with what they have."

"We're looking at certainly the floral side — the nursery side," said Andrews. "We're looking at finding out about the volunteer involvement, which is extensive here. A small community tends to be tight like that… It's generally the whole communal involvement."