CURRENT CITY AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
Nutrition and Physical Activity Grant
The City of Salina has been awarded the Greater Salina Community Foundation Nutrition and Physical Activity Grant in the amount $32,000 for Phase III of the Levee Hike and Bike Trail project. The Greater Salina Community Foundation is one of several community foundations that received a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation to help improve the health of Saline County through better nutrition and physical activity and formed a community coalition to these issues. The City of Salina has been awarded this grant in 2010 and 2011; the 2012 grant will complete the section from Bill Burke Park to Iowa Avenue by providing 90% of the estimated cost.
Fire Department Accreditation
The Salina Fire Department has received national accrediation through the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE). The accrediation model includes a full range of performance evaluation categories. Each category includes a measure or index on which a judgment or division can be based, as well as indicators that define the desired level of ability to perform a particular task. Salina is now one of three fire departments in the State of Kansas that have achieved this.
BlueCHIP Healthy Community Award
On January 25, 2012, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas and the Kansas Recreation and Park Association (KRPA) announced that the City of Salina Parks and Recreation Department was selected as a winner of the BlueCHIP Healthy Community Award. This award was created to recognize and reward Kansas communities who encourage and support healthy lifestyles through programs, initiatives, policies and/or community-wide events. The winning communities received $2,500 to further support their efforts to fund programs or initiatives related to healthy lifestyles.
Smoky Hill River Renewal Master Plan receives Professional Award of Honor
Salina’s Smoky Hill River Renewal Master Plan has been recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Colorado Chapter, with the prestigious Honor Award for outstanding professional achievement in the chapter’s 2011 Professional Design Awards. Of the fourteen Planning category awards, the Smoky Hill River Renewal Master Plan was one of only three submittals to receive the Honor Award designation.
The award recognizes the achievements of the Friends of the River Foundation and the City of Salina in the two- year master planning effort that included an unprecedented level of community participation by the citizens of Salina, resulting in an innovative and long-range vision for reclaiming the Old Channel of the Smoky Hill River as a community asset.
Design Studios West, Inc. (DSW), of Denver, Colorado, was the lead planning and landscape architectural consultant for the master plan. DSW President, Donald H. Brandes, Jr., remarked “This is a great honor for the Friends of the River, the City of Salina, and the entire Salina Community. This recognition of the Smoky Hill River Renewal Master Plan, by the professional planning community, serves as a strong endorsement of Salina’s vision and investment in the future of the Smoky Hill River.”
A Colorado’s annual awards ceremony showcases outstanding projects completed by ASLA Colorado members. The entries were judged by the ASLA Arizona chapter using a 23-point scale for scoring. ASLA Colorado is the fourth largest chapter in the ASLA national organization, which is the professional society that represents professional landscape architects in the Nation.
NFPA Educational Grant
The National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Fire Safety Educational Memorial Fund Committee has selected the Salina Fire Department HazMat Response Team as the receipent of the 2012 Warren E. Isman Educational Grant. This grant award allows the receipents the opportunity to attend a selected conference that specializes in hazardous materials training and education sessions. The Warren E. Isman Educational Grant was established by the International Association of Fire Chiefs following the death of Warren Isman in 1991. The grant is named in honor of a man who was known to value training and education. He was the former fire chief in Fairfax County, Virginia, a senior instructor for the University ofMaryland Fire Service Extension Program, and author of three fire-related textbooks.
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