[All] Hidden Valley, THE NEXT HOOP ~ LEAF FUND Review Update. Please Mark Your Calendars!

Wed May 23 14:43:27 EDT 2012

Dear friends of Hidden Valley,
It's been an eight year battle so far .... are you still there? We need your help in June!

The attachment above was (thankfully) prepared by Larry Hamel for the KW Field Naturalists a week ago. Gord and I had just returned from a month of visiting our daughter in Sweden and travelling in England: it's taken a week to recuperate.

Compass Kitchener, a group of community volunteers chaired by Theron Kramer, has been given the responsibility of choosing which of 4 causes will receive all or some of the $3.4 million left in the Local Environmental Action Fund (LEAF), to make a positive impact on the environment.  Hidden Valley is one of the 4 tabled options. Background Information on all of the options is given on the Kitchener website. The Backgrounder information on Hidden Valley lists 4 planning documents which relate to Hidden Valley, all of them reflecting out-of- date environmental standards, but none of the pertinent facts is explained.  These documents allow "light industries" such as garages, trucking companies, scientific plants, to name a few, a business "park" , a subdivision,  each with parking lots and driveways which would drain into the Grand, just above where 23% (+/-) of our drinking water is syphoned out of the river for treatment at the Manheim plant. So close to the water intake ... surely the precautionary principle MUST apply. They permit the destruction of acres of forest. Such developments would also impact the 3 Provincially Significant Wetlands, the Regionally Significant plants, the nesting place of over 100 species of birds, a biodiverse ecosystem, many species of wildflowers and  habitat of the endangered Jefferson salamander. Is this what you'd like? I'm not ready to concede!

Getting a major part of $3.4 million for Hidden Valley might not be sufficient to purchase it, but it would send a strong message to the community and it could be the start of  corporate/private fundraising that would save all of Hidden Valley as a Natural Area Park in the centre of the Region. For that reason, I'm hoping people from Waterloo and Cambridge will attend the meetings and fill in the questionnaires too, carefully and thoroughly. Read the background information and be prepared, please! 

On May 30, 11 am, on the 6th floor of City Hall, I'm meeting with Kitchener Senior Planner, Brandon Sloan, to get a clear understanding of what the planning documents stipulate for Hidden Valley. If you are able to join us, please let me know ASAP, so Brandon can book a room. Lets make sure a LARGE room is needed!

The biggest impact will be if there's a large number of participants at  each of  3 Compass Kitchener Public Input meetings. We hope you will be able to attend, and lobby for Hidden Valley!  
          Thurs. May 31 6-7:30 Kitchener Youth Action Council  Downtown Community Centre, 35 B Weber St. W.
           Sat. June 9 , 9:30-11:30, Stanley Park Community Centre 505 Franklin St. N
           Tuesday, June 12, 5:30-7:30, Kitchener Market , 300 King St. E.

Those of us willing and able to continue to lobby for Hidden Valley are requested to prepare for the meetings by reading the Backgrounders for all 4 causes, attend one or all of the meetings, and fill in a questionnaire. If you can't manage all of these, PLEASE, PLEASE consider doing what you can, and share this information with friends who are interested.

We need LOTS of people at the public meetings. The committee won't be able to ignore large numbers of people. I'm not making your email addresses public,  but I'm sending this message to as many interested people as I can. In case I miss someone you know, please forward this message.

Thank you!Daphne

Hello! 

Attached is information (subject to one or two revisions) that I will post on the KWFN website.

This information was obtained in a telephone conversation with T. Kramer yesterday evening and some poking around on the city's website this morning.

I thought you should have this information right away, if in fact you don't already have it.

It looks like the number of people present at the meetings and/or completing the online survey who respond in favour of one alternative or another could be determining factor. (Italics, Daphne)

Larry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20120523/cfc4ceee/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: LEAF Program Review 15May12.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 30720 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20120523/cfc4ceee/attachment.doc>