FOR RELEASE SATURDAY, JUNE 13 AT 2 P.M.

The City of Meridian has been awarded both a national and a statewide award for its Meridian Greening project, a comprehensive program involving all city departments and geared toward economic efficiencies and environmentally sound practices.

At a luncheon in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday, Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith accepted an Outstanding Achievement City Livability Award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors for cities under 100,000 in population. The awards luncheon was held in conjunction with the conference of mayors’ annual meeting. In Jackson, the Mississippi Municipal League announced that Meridian Greening had been awarded an MML Excellence Award in the category of “Planning and Economic Development” for cities of more than 10,000. Winners will be recognized at MML’s annual conference in July.

Other finalists in the U.S. Conference of Mayors City Livability Awards program for small cities were Aguadilla, Puerto Rico; Albany, New York; Carbondale, IL; Cerritos, California; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Dublin, Ohio; Edmond, Oklahoma; Euless, Texas; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Lauderhill, Florida; New Berlin, Wisconsin, Oak Lawn, Illinois; Schenectady, New York; and Sugar Land, Texas. The overall award went to Chapel Hill, with four of the other finalists plus Meridian taking the Outstanding Achievement Awards.

In the MML awards program, two other awards were given in the over 10,000 population category. The City of Madison won the City Spirit award and the City of Picayune won in the category of public safety. The best overall award for cities large and small went to the Town of Woodland.

The city’s Meridian Greening was launched on Earth Day, 2008, with the unveiling of nearly 90 strategies that would be adopted by city employees in day-to-day operations. These initiatives had been crafted by the “Green Team” comprised of employees from every department. They were challenged to develop policies and programs that would save money and contribute to a healthier environment. The initiatives cover a broad spectrum, including the use of LED traffic lights, environmentally safe maintenance and cleaning products, tree planting, energy-saving measures and more efficiencies built into water and wastewater treatment.