By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

In an effort to reignite civic pride, Price City is hosting a ‘Take Pride in Price’ competition to encourage citizens to beautify their properties. To promote this contest and city beautification in general, the KOAL newsroom was joined by Price City Mayor Mike Kourianos and Kathy Hannah-Smith.

Opening our discussion, Smith explained what ‘Take Pride in Price’ is: “It’s any area that you may feel you want to spruce up your home, you know, paint that little picket fence out in front of your house, or make sure you get the weeds pulled down and mow your lawn. And, you know, we all want to come home to a home that we’re proud of and that our neighbors are proud of having us in the neighborhood. So we are all a reflection not only on ourselves, but on our city, our neighbors, and our people that come to visit us.”

She continued,” The point is that we overall clean up our city, make it beautiful, and when people come to town, there’s an awe effect.”

Kourianos jumped in and discussed the origin of the campaign from the mayoral perspective. “So this was basically introduced to me by Kathy. I look at where she lives in her home and her neighborhood. It’s beautiful. And there are a couple of places that are blighted. And she wanted to pitch this idea. And I said, ‘This is wonderful. Let’s try it.’ So she said, ‘I’ll put up $1,000 to this. And how do we make this work? Where do we go with this?’ And that’s where I introduced it to the council. And it started there. Commissioner Haddock was there and he said, ‘You know what? I want to donate to this also.’ So you had two individuals who saw the vision. And with myself, the council, we saw that they embraced it. How do we spin this off, you know, and make this work?”

Kourianos added,” This will have money involved where people could get a little token saying, you know what? Thank you for making a difference in our community and in our neighborhood. That’s what this is all about. It’s going to be an infectious disease … And I’m talking to not only our homeowners, but I’m talking to our renters. Many of our renters who are renting homes think, ‘oh, it’s the landlord’s responsibility.’ No, it’s the, it’s that tenant that’s in those buildings that can make a difference and take pride in where they live.”

Speaking of the trio of herself, Kourianos and Haddock, Smith stated,” The energy of the three of us has been so fun to watch. Nobody drops any balls. Everybody’s running really hard.”

 To help in this community beautification mission, the trio is hosting a ‘Take Pride in Price’ contest which will give citizens a total of $1000 for beautifying their yards. Additionally, the group has declared every day ‘Pull a Weed day’, encouraging citizens to pull one weed a day to help keep streets clean. “Can you just envision it? If everybody did what we’re talking about in the contest, and then if everybody saw weed, no matter what it was, whether it’s in your yard, in the crack of a sidewalk, wherever it’s at, just bend over, pull it,” said Smith.’

To participate, take a before-and-after picture of your yard and submit it to Price City Hall. The contest runs from Monday, Aug. 25 to Saturday, Sept. 8. Judging is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 10. First-place winners will receive $150 and second-place will take home $100.

As for the long-term goal of the project, Smith explained,” I want everybody to be proud of the city they live in. I want everybody to say when they go anywhere, I live in Price, and I love it there. And so that’s what I want more than anything, that there are no negative comments anymore. Let’s just get in all of us. It’s our city. And let’s all be positive.”

Closing our conversation, Mayor Kourianos shared,” Please submit some pictures. And if there are any questions, please call me. I’d love to help you come up with a solution to make it even bigger. You know, this is not going to go away. We’re going to keep this rolling.”

The ‘Take Pride in Price’ contest runs from Monday, Aug. 25, to Saturday, Sept. 8. Judging is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 10. First-place winners will receive $150, and second-place winners will take home $100. To enter, submit before and after photos of your property to Price City.