UBCM Community Excellence Award Winners

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS LEADING THE WAY WITH VISION, CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION ARE HONOURED WITH UBCM COMMUNITY EXCELLENCE AWARDS

UBCM First Vice President Laurey-Anne Roodenburg was joined today by the Honourable Josie Osborne, Minister of Municipal Affairs to announce this year’s winners of the Community Excellence Awards.

UBCM is very proud of the work our members do to make their communities stronger and more sustainable places to live. These awards give us an opportunity to acknowledge successes, and to recognize the hard-working elected officials and staff that are leading the way.

The awards are also a way for members to learn about the great initiatives going on around the province so they can take those ideas home to implement in their own communities. The winners will be featured in future UBCM Compass newsletters, and members can also learn more about the short-listed projects from videos prepared by Urban Systems that are available on UBCM’s YouTube account.

The categories for the awards reflect the main purpose of local government set out in the Community Charter and the Local Government Act:  provide good governance; deliver services for community benefit; ensure responsible stewardship of public assets; and maintain a sustainable framework. Based on this, the award categories recognize UBCM members that demonstrate excellence in:

• Governance – by utilizing decision-making processes and policies that are outcomes-based and consensus oriented, support and encourage citizen participation, are efficient, equitable, inclusive and transparent, and exemplify best practices in accountability, effectiveness, and long-term thinking;
• Service Delivery – by providing effective and beneficial services to the community in a proactive manner and drawing on performance measures, benchmarks and standards to ensure that service delivery is sustainable;
• Asset Management – by developing comprehensive, integrated, innovative and effective approaches to the management of existing and new infrastructure in order to maximize benefits, reduce risk and provide satisfactory levels of service to the community in a sustainable manner; and
• Sustainability – by meeting current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, and incorporating the four pillars of sustainability (cultural, social, economic and environmental) into local government planning, policy and practice.

In 2021, a new awards category was added – the Presidents Committee Choice award. This category recognizes a community the UBCM Presidents Committee believed deserved special recognition for its outstanding response to the pandemic. The unique circumstances that communities across BC faced during this difficult time brought to light many innovative ways that local governments adapted to the impact of COVID-19.

UBCM would like to acknowledge our 2021 award sponsors:

• GOLD: Municipal Finance Association of BC
• GOLD: Urban Systems
• SILVER: Joint Provincial-UBCM Green Communities Committee (GCC)

Thank you to everyone who applied, you are all examples of excellence in local government.

Readers can also download a PDF version of the Community Excellence Awards Media Release.