Community Profile

Pledge Status

Complete

Pledge Date

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Program Year

2021

Achievement

Leadership Circle

2021

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Action Item Report

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City of Hyattsville

Hyattsville, MD

Kevin Ward

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The City of Hyattsville, a residential suburb of Washington D.C. located at the head of the Anacostia River is a thriving community with a population of over 18,000. The City maintains a large focus on sustainability and environmental resiliency. With this in mind Mayor Kevin Ward has committed to saving the monarch butterfly and other pollinators with the signing of the Mayors Monarch Pledge and looks forward to engaging residents in building more pollinator habitat throughout the city.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2021

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.
  • 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.
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.

Systems Change

  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.
  • 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.