"Emotional attachment is the glue that holds a community together"

The July 4th Woolwich Observer published a "Letter to the Editor" by Laurie Jonkman of Elmira that included these comments:


"Victoria Glen plans harmful to ecosystem"

"Victoria Glen Park was established as parkland early in the 20th century. It was rezoned residentional in 1948 in the belief that it would be needed to provide accommodations for returning veterans in tha face of a housing shortage. Yet, Elmira managed to get by without bulldozing the valuable nature preserve.

Until now.

More than 60 years later, Woolwich Township council is looking to bulldoze Victoria Glen Park. The purely pragmatic reason is to realize conservatively $1 million (or maybe two) from the sale of land for residential development.

But Victoria Glen is even more valuable to our community as green space. There is so little natural forest left. As parkland, it costs the municipality nothing. Destroying even a small portion of the forest would serously damage if not destroy the forest's ecosystem.

At the June 23 public meeting, Councillor Ruby Weber expressed surprise that there was more to the presentations than "just" emotion. Her implication seemed to be that emotional arguments for preserving our environment weren't as important as council's desire to realize a profit from the sale of this nature preserve.

I guess she doesn't realize that emotional attachment is the glue that holds a community together....

Rather than destroying Victoria Glen Park, Woolwich should restore it to the original zoning designation as parkland and preserve this irreplaceable public green space for now and forever."