Community Profile

Pledge Status

Complete

Pledge Date

Monday, March 7, 2022

Program Year

2022

Achievement

Signatories

2022

Links and Uploads

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Action Item Report

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City of Verona

Verona, WI

Luke Diaz

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The city of Verona is in Dane County Wisconsin, with a population of around 14,000. The city of Verona is situated at the crossing of two trails: The Military Ridge Trail and the Ice Age Trail. Mayor Diaz of Verona, Wisconsin, an avid native plant gardener, has championed conservation efforts throughout the city. Mayor Diaz has also committed to making sure Verona does its part by signing the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge and looks forward to expanding the use of native plants in Verona.

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Community Spotlight

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Arbor Day at the Verona Public Library

Children help to plant a tree on Arbor Day 2025.

Action Items Committed for 2022

Communications and Convening

  • 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.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.

Systems Change

  • Remove milkweed from the list of noxious plants in city weed / landscaping ordinances (if applicable).
  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an effort to change municipal planting ordinances and practices to include more native milkweed and native nectar producing plants at city properties.