OLDS — An Olds town councillor has urged her colleagues to consider bringing back the Communities in Bloom (CiB) committee in some form.
Coun. Wanda Blatz suggested that idea could be discussed later this year when council debates the level of service the Town of Olds should look at providing to residents.
CiB is a non-profit organization that promotes friendly competition between Canadian communities to beautify their towns, villages or cities.
It was created in 1995. Competitions are now held in several categories on a provincial and national level.
The idea to revive the committee came up during council’s May 24 meeting.
While discussing plans to celebrate the Year of the Garden, community services director Doug Wagstaff said a group promoting those celebrations also partners with CiB.
That piqued Blatz’s interest.
“At one time, Olds was a very active Communities in Bloom community. Are there going to be plans to maybe start that program again,” she asked.
“Because I know a lot of people really liked to volunteer for it and worked very hard to bring Olds up to a very high standard within (the) Communities in Bloom organization.
“And I think it might be something — coming out of the pandemic and post-COVID — that maybe, perhaps we could start looking at that for next year.”
Blatz was unsure if that would be something Town of Olds staff would take on or if it would be totally generated by town residents.
Wagstaff said municipal staff have no “plans or directives” to resurrect CiB.
“It was a community-driven committee,” he said.
“It had a really good run, where it ran its course and then it seemed to, you know, wane, as far as the broader support for involvement in keeping that activity running and keeping the committee together,” he said.
“So, unless there’s a service level discussion that would change that course, no, there’s not any plans (to resurrect it).”
Blatz said then maybe that’s a topic to bring up during service level discussions “just to see if there is interest.”
