Community Profile

Pledge Status

Complete

Pledge Date

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Program Year

2025

Achievement

Signatories

2025

Links and Uploads

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Action Item Report

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Minnetonka Beach

Minnetonka Beach, MN

Joe Pagano

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The City of the Village of Minnetonka Beach is a special lake community located in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. Surrounded by Minnesota's 9th largest lake, Lake Minnetonka, covering 14,528 acres, the City has a quaint village feel and is rich in history. With a strong commitment to the protection of City parks and public lands, the City Council and Park Commission fully supports initiatives that provide an ecosystem for beneficial insects and wildlife. The City is renewing the Mayor's Monarch Pledge for 2025 to further engage our community and residents in building more pollinator-friendly habits throughout the Village. Monarch Pledge educational messaging will continue to be generated to residents via the City's newsletter, email blasts, educational signage, and mailing inserts. The Park Commission is engaged in promoting sustainable, pollinator-friendly gardens, organic lawncare, and selective mowing. Milkweed and nectar planting will continue to be encouraged both in public spaces and with residents own landscapes. The City's monarch and pollinator-friendly garden is in its third year of establishment at Lafayette Park complete with a beautiful pollinator garden educational sign for trail walkers to see at the garden's edge. As a community engagement effort, packets of Asclepias tuberosa seeds were distributed to residents for their own gardens with detailed planting instructions. Additional native milkweed and pollinator plantings have been added and maintained at the Swim Beach Park Garden. A new educational, podium style sign about protecting shoreline habitat was created for the Swim Beach Park shoreline where the extensive native plants are. Minnetonka Beach City Hall has seen the addition of monarch and pollinator-friendly plants as well. Plans are also underway to add native plants at the City's northern shoreline of Lake Minnetonka as part of a shoreline restoration project. As a former Park Commission Chair, Mayor Pagano fully endorses continued efforts to raise awareness of the continued decreased population of the western monarch butterfly. Education and project initiatives in Minnetonka Beach will continue to provide vital habitat to assist in saving the monarch butterfly.

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Community Spotlight

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City of Minnetonka Beach Pollinator Garden 2022

Native wildflower gardens, and the pollinator populations they support, have become increasingly important due to critical habitat loss. Mayor Pagano renewed the City's commitment to creating habitat for the Monarch Butterfly and other pollinators

Action Items Committed for 2025

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 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.

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.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.