Comment 47 – comments and feedback
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Marcelene Shiry
My name is Marcelene Shiry and I have lived in the Forest Hill area of Kitchener since 1959. My husband and I purchased our first and only house here and it's where we raised our three children.
The areas of Forest Hill and Forest Heights are, for all intents and purposes, the same neighbourhood.
My children attended Forest Hill Public School, Queensmount Secondary School and Forest Heights Collegiate.
They took swimming lessons at Forest Heights pool and attended programs at the Forest Heights library. They walked and biked the streets of Forest Hill and Forest Heights - knowing that they would be home in minutes once the streetlights came on.
Forest Hill and Forest Heights have been and continue to be a tight-knit community.
Having lived in Kitchener my entire life, I recall how upset the people of Preston, Galt and Hespeler were when they amalgamated to form Cambridge in the 1970s. These were much smaller communities at the time and they valued their unique identities.
As time passes people typically accept these types of changes and move on. Not the people of Cambridge. To this day if you ask someone living there they will tell you they live in Preston, Galt or Hespeler.
It's interesting and admirable that with all the changes in the world, these communities have managed to hold on tight to their individual identities. To this day, Hespeler still has its own Santa Claus parade even though the Cambridge Santa Claus parade is one of the biggest in the region.
I understand you are considering dividing the town of Hespeler with the intent of adding a portion of it to the riding of Kitchener-Conestoga. That just seems so far away from our neighbourhoods. I would feel bad for the people of Hespeler being split in two only to have a portion attached to Kitchener-Conestoga; an area they have absolutely no connection to. In addition, removing the word Hespeler from the riding name would certainly make them feel invisible.
Please consider joining the neighbourhood of Forest Hill to the riding of Kitchener-Conestoga and please consider keeping Hespeler together. This just makes good sense and would be a nicer outcome for everyone.
Sincerely,
Marcelene Shiry