Community Profile

Pledge Status

Did Not Report

Pledge Date

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Program Year

2021

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Action Item Report

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Town of West Hartford

West Hartford, CT

Shari Cantor

Mayor

Pledge Summary

West Hartford is located in central Connecticut adjacent to and west of the City of Hartford, the state capital. Immediate neighboring towns are Bloomfield, Newington, Farmington, and Avon. West Hartford has wonderful public recreation (Leisure Services) areas including indoor Veterans Memorial Skating Rink; two indoor pools at Cornerstone Aquatics Center, and four outdoor pools at Fernridge, Beachland, Eisenhower, and Kennedy parks; six public parks, the three mentioned and Wolcott Park. As well as Westmoor Park, an educational environmental demonstration farm.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2021

Communications and Convening

  • Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
  • Engage with community garden groups and urge them to plant native milkweeds and nectar-producing plants.
  • Engage with city parks and recreation, public works, sustainability, and other relevant staff to identify opportunities to revise and maintain mowing programs and milkweed / native nectar plant planting programs.
  • Engage with developers, planners, landscape architects, and other community leaders and organizers engaged in planning processes to identify opportunities to create monarch habitat.
  • Create a community-driven educational conservation strategy, initiative, or practice that focuses on and benefits local, underserved residents.
  • Issue a proclamation to raise awareness about the decline of the monarch butterfly and the species’ need for habitat. This proclamation must incorporate a focus on monarch conservation.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.
  • Launch or maintain an outdoor education program(s) (e.g., at schools, after-school programs, community centers and groups) that builds awareness and creates habitat by engaging students, educators, and the community in planting native milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants (i.e., National Wildlife Federation’s Schoolyard Habitats program and Monarch Mission curriculum).
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

Systems Change

  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.