The National League of Cities and CH2MHILL, a major engineering, construction and operations company, have announced that Slidell is a finalist for the 2008 Awards for Municipal Excellence given for municipalities with outstanding programs to improve the quality of life.

Slidell is being considered for this recognition as a result of its aggressive anti-litter/anti-trash campaign embodied in the efforts of the mostly-volunteer Keep Slidell Beautiful, led by executive director Bill Mauser.

“Slidell has demonstrated its ability to offer outstanding programs for its citizens in order to transform the community and its challenges,” NLC executive director Donald Borut said. “The Awards for Municipal Excellence recognize the spirit in which cities excel and face the future.” Of the 173 nominations received, Slidell’s program is one of 19 accepted as a finalist in the category of municipalities under 50,000 population. The winners will be announced at the League of Cities Congress of Cities and Exposition Nov. 11-15 in Orlando, Fla. A list of all 57 finalists in the various population-size categories can be found at www.nlc.org.

Nominated programs were judged on the following criteria: Successful public-private partnership ventures; productive citizen and community collaborations; effective management of municipal resources; innovative government policies, project implementation with tangible results; and/or the ability to replicate the project in other cities.

Last year, Slidell captured first place in the Louisiana Municipal Association’s Community Development category for cities with populations of more than 25,000 with its “Keep Slidell Beautiful: Rebirth of a Beautiful City” citywide cleanup efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, drawing praise from the National League of Cities.

In his letter of congratulations to city officials, Borut encouraged Slidell to apply for the prestigious Awards for Municipal Excellence. The city took him up on that.

The NLC also included a description of Slidell’s program in the NLC’s “City Practices” collection, a central site for effective and imaginative programs used by researchers across the country. That collection can be found online at www.nlc.org, under the “About Cities” category and in the “City Knowledge Network” section. At about the same time last year, Keep Slidell Beautiful’s parade anti-litter program, which reduced the amount of litter collected during the 2007 Carnival season parades by about 70 percent, was honored by state parent Keep Louisiana Beautiful.

Slidell won first place in the litter prevention category — one of KLB’s five award categories — presented for “outstanding litter prevention activities that were used to change the attitudes and behaviors of citizens in communities.”

“The success of these programs is a tribute to the organizational and leadership abilities of Bill Mauser and KSB’s board of directors,” said City Council President Ray Canada.

“Our success this past year came about because of the partnerships we developed with civic groups, churches, schools, businesses, neighborhood groups, families and individuals,” Mauser said. ”Partnerships and volunteers make it all happen.”