WHEREAS The Kingsville Communities in Bloom Committee recognizes the critical importance of pollinator habitat both restored and maintained on public and private lands;
AND WHEREAS pollinators include butterflies, bees, some birds, bats, and other insects that play a crucial role in flowering plant reproduction;
AND WHEREAS it is critical to expand efforts to take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels;
AND WHEREAS monarch butterfly populations have declined and there is an imminent risk of failed migration;
AND WHEREAS 35 % of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollination to reproduce;
AND WHEREAS bioretention is able to reduce the impact of local heat islands;
AND WHEREAS vegetation absorbs less solar radiation than hard surfaces.
AND WHEREAS Kingsville Communities in Bloom Committee has declared that it is their goal to collaboratively and strategically protect and enhance pollinator species and their habitat on public and private lands throughout our municipality and the County of Essex.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the Corporation of the Town of Kingsville endorses the Kingsville Communities in Bloom Committee's request that the traffic island at the intersection of McCain Road and Heritage Road be redeveloped into a pollinator habitat to help recover pollinator species, while reducing the former maintenance costs of cutting and spraying herbicides in summer months, while acting as a natural water aquifer as well as the added benefit of a living snow fence in winter;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Resolution be forwarded to The Corporation of the County of Essex for further consideration.