CNLANEWS
City of Barrie receives 2024 Green Cities Award BY STUART SERVICE CNLA Media Coordinator
The City of Barrie received the 2024 Green Cities Award at Communities in Bloom’s 30th Symposium and Awards held in Charlottetown, P.E.I., last October. “We were truly blessed to be awarded the Green Cities Award on behalf of the community and our dedicated staff,” said Mona Boyd, horticulture foreperson for the City of Barrie. Barrie staff and elected officials have received and acted on helpful insight from judging evaluations through participation with the Communities in Bloom (CiB) program for 27 years. Boyd said Barrie’s participation in CiB has been a great way to bring together municipal staff and community groups eager
Kungl said. “But the work that staff are doing year over year has really compounded into this really impressive skill set of what they're able to propose and actually implement.” A big development coming to Barrie is a state-of-the-art greenhouse facility set to open this spring. The new greenhouse will save the city a lot of money on electricity due to its zero-net energy build, as well as by creating a single, large space for plants across the city to be brought inside for the winter. “We're really excited,” said Boyd of the new structure. “We're blessed because there's not a lot of municipalities that have greenhouses,” she continued. “Instead of contracting things out, we're actually going to be able to continue
to show the judges a peek behind the curtain of their city every summer. Ann-Marie Kungl, Ward 3 councillor for the City of Barrie, said winning the award was an exciting honour. “We're used to getting feedback about how we're doing year over year (from CiB judges),” Kungl said. “But this was a whole different level.” With the population in the City of Barrie projected to double by 2050, the city will need to manage different pressure points around that growth. “Sometimes it feels like what we're doing around climate action, a circular economy and landfill diversion — that those aren't maybe the top pieces when we're looking at trying to balance budgets,”
25_003439_Landscape_Trades_MAY_CN Mod: March 19, 2025 2:20 PM Print: 04/03/25 page 1 v2.5
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