Abbeville captures district clean city contest

Dozens have spent the past few weeks preparing Abbeville for the arrival of Louisiana Garden Club Federation District Cleanest City, some volunteers picking up trash with their bare hands as late as Tuesday morning.
The effort left a positive impression on the judges Tuesday as they named Abbeville a district winner of the 2014 Cleanest City Competition. The city now moves to the state round of judging, which will take place in May.
Abbeville won the state title in 2012. Mayor Mark Piazza said Tuesday afternoon that it is nice to be back on that track.
“We are very excited about winning on the regional level,” Piazza said. “We are looking forward to competing on the state level. This is the fourth year that we have competed. We won on the state level during the second year. Last year we didn’t get past the regional level, but the entire administration feels really good about this year’s success. The judges were very complementary about the community as a whole and they commented that it was much improved from last year.
“That’s a big compliment.”
That is simply a result of a combined effort.
“It’s great to see a community effort,” Piazza said. “I especially want to commend our businesses who participated, as well as all of the residents.
“There were so many throughout the community who put forth the effort to make our city as clean and attractive as possible.”
There were plenty who put in the time to organize the effort.
“I want to thank Charlene Beckett with our Main Street program who coordinated the event,” Piazza said, “as well as our two chairman. I want to congratulate Co-Chairman Sandra Creswell of Keep Abbeville Beautiful and Liz Gremillion of the Abbeville Garden Club. I also want to thank all of the volunteers from those two organizations.”
There are others worth of kudos.
“I especially want to thank Vermilion Parish Sheriff Mike Couvillon for all of his help,” Piazza said, “as well as Ricky LeBlanc at solid waste and the Vermilion Parish Police Jury for its continued support.
“I want to offer a special debt of gratitude from myself and the city council to our city workers who worked so hard to make this a possibility.”