Community Profile

City of Rolling Meadows

Rolling Meadows, IL

Lara Sanoica

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The City of Rolling Meadows is a city roughly 20 miles Northwest of Chicago, IL with a population of approximately 25,000 residents. The city has an abundance of parks and public space. In addition to it's public spaces and parks, there are community gardens. These community gardens are plots of green space where residents can grow produce and flowers. The City of Rolling Meadows, Illinois has committed to saving the monarch butterfly and other pollinators with the signing of the Mayors' pledge and look forward to encouraging residents to plant more native plants and flowers giving our indigenous pollinators more to feed on.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2025

Communications and Convening ▸

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.
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 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 ▸

Host or support a native seed or plant sale, giveaway or swap.
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).
Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

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.
Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
Launch, expand, or continue one or more ordinances to reduce light pollution to benefit urban wildlife.

Past Pledge Archive

Mayor Name	Program Year	Pledge Date	Achievement
Mayor Lara Sanoica	2025	1/22/2025		View Pledge
Mayor Lara Sanoica	2024	12/14/2023	Signatories	View Pledge
Mayor Lara Sanoica	2023	3/5/2023	Signatories	View Pledge

Pledge Status

Pledge Date

Program Year

Links and Uploads

Action Item Report