Working With Town Government

Engaging your town government is essential for the long-term success of your program.  To raise awareness, meet with town and regional leaders and show them pictures of local infestations, offer a workshop that includes a brief PowerPoint presentation or take them on a walking tour of infestations in the town. Point out the ways invasive plants threaten the local economy, reduce the quality of recreation and degrade wildlife habitat.

Giving leaders a clear picture of what and where the threat is can spur them to take action, conduct an initial assessment of the town’s invasive plant situation.  Include areas such as:

  • Town roads

  • Plantings in front of town-owned buildings and median strips

  • Town parks

  • Hiking trails and bike paths

  • Town forests and natural areas

  • Plantings in front of private businesses

Enlisting volunteers and using mapping tools such as iMapinvasives could help you perform these initial assessments.

The following is a list of people – typically responsible for local land use policies and management in your area – who may be willing to meet with you:

  • Town managers

  • Board members

  • Road commissioner

  • Parks and recreation committee members

  • Members of the business community

  • School administrators

  • Conservation commission members

  • Regional planning commission members

Once you’ve got their attention, consider encouraging your leaders to do some of the following:

  • Amend the town plan so it includes invasives-related goals and policies. The town plan outlines the vision and goals for the town’s future and leads the implementation process for regulations, ordinances and policies. Contact the town clerk or go to the documents or zoning section of the town website to find a copy of the town plan. Links to Vermont town websites are available here.

  • Adopt zoning ordinances and bylaws that prohibit new plantings of invasives and encourage the planting of native plants.

  • Develop and implement invasive plant management plans for town forests and other areas. Determine which properties are highest priority for invasive plant management and prevention. Once a priority property is identified, develop a weed management plan. Present the completed weed management plan to town planners or the appropriate board for approval.

  • Conduct prevention and management activities on town-owned lands.

  • Create an Early Detection Rapid Response (EDRR) protocol, which describes procedures and action steps for limiting and controlling small-scale outbreaks of invasives before they proliferate into larger, more difficult problems. 

  • Adopt Road Crew Best Management Practices for invasive plants. Invasive plants are frequently found along roadways, often spread is through the activities of town road crews.  Train road crew personnel on plant identification or host a local road crew workshop in conjunction with the regional planning commission’s transportation planners and/or VT Local Roads, a statewide technical assistance program for road crews. Click here to check out a list of Road Crew Best Management Practices.

  • Engage the town’s tree warden, who oversees the planting, maintenance and protection of all trees on town lands and within the town right-of-way.

  • Seek municipal funding dedicated to invasive plant management on priority parcels. A dollar commitment is one way to show prospective grantors that a project is valued, and federal agencies and private foundations like projects that are supported by town and regional leadership. Even if a town cannot provide funding through the budget process, it may still be able to fund specific projects through grants and other sources. 

  • Approach the Regional Planning Commission, which develops a regional plan that sets priorities for the funding of special projects based on compatibility with their regional plans. Including language regarding invasive plants in regional plans could lay the groundwork for the implementation of regional workshops, invasive species assessments, and management plans.  Click here to find a link to your town’s Regional Planning Commission.