For detailed descriptions of Monday’s tour: click here.
For detailed descriptions of Tuesday’s tour: click here.
For more information about the judges or the mission of this blog, click the corresponding tab at the top of this screen.
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After a non-stop two-day tour of Columbia, Julie Riley and Matt Rosen, two judges from America in Bloom, are headed to Lafayette, Ind. to start all over again. But their work here is not finished after they leave the public eye.
“Matt and I will meet and go through the scoring tonight.” Riley said on Tuesday, the final day of the tour. “We like to keep each city separate in our minds and the best way to do that is to compartmentalize them.”
In October, they will present their findings to representatives from Columbia at the America in Bloom awards ceremony in Columbus, Ohio.
Riley said the detailed report should be around 25 pages, a majority of which will be written soon after the tour. It will contain observations of the city’s strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for city officials.
Each city will receive a report at the awards conference and receive recognition for an outstanding project in their city. In addition, the highest scoring city in each population category will be considered the champion of that category and eight cities across the board will be recognized for top scores in the eight specific criteria judges used.
“We’re not really comparing the communities against each other,” Riley said. “We’re judging each community against its potential in each of the eight categories.”
The categories include landscaped areas, turf and ground covers, floral displays, tidiness, urban forestry, heritage, community involvement and environmental effort.
Rosen said the tour is better than any convention you could ever go to. He said you might not be interested in half of the information at a convention, but on the tour you can ask any question you want.
“My favorite part is meeting with people,” Riley said. “We get to go behind the scenes to meet the decision-makers and the volunteer network of the city. There are always a lot of activities, a lot of ideas, that you can bring back to your own city or share with others.”
— Rebecca Legel
