Community Profile

Pledge Status

Active

Pledge Date

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Program Year

2024

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Action Item Report

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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 2024

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.
  • Engage with gardening leaders and partners (e.g., Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, Nature Centers, Native Plant Society Chapters , other long-standing and influential community leaders) to support monarch butterfly conservation.
  • 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 community garden groups and urge them to plant native milkweeds and nectar-producing plants.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Launch, expand, or continue an invasive species removal program that will support the re-establishment of native habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • 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).
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.

Systems Change

  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.
  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Remove milkweed from the list of noxious plants in city weed / landscaping ordinances (if applicable).