The following is by Sumner’s Mayor Dave Enslow:

If you haven’t noticed in awhile, Sumner is looking great. The first-ever Front Yard Fair this past weekend encouraged us to walk around and really appreciate the hard work that our neighbors put into their yards.  Thank you to the 18 residents who allowed us to take a peak at their front yards and compliment them on everything from the best rhubarb to the best front porch.

We often talk about things the city and the businesses do to make our town special, but we don’t often enough thank each resident who is out there mowing, weeding and painting to keep us all looking beautiful.  Take a look at the full list of “best of” for each yard.

A recent article talked about the huge problem for cities when their citizens don’t have much pride or confidence in their own city.  You can invest millions in streets, trees and sidewalks, but if residents still view their own city as unsafe and dirty, it’s never going to succeed.  The challenge is that no one can buy their way or manage their way out of a mindset.

Sumner, on the other hand, is collectively proud of itself.  Even most of our challenges come from a place of pride.  We know we have it good and want to make sure we don’t somehow mess it up!  Please, keep up that spirit.  Like any house or yard, we’ll always have improvements to make and challenges to overcome, but as long as we love this place, we’ve already won half the battle.