Kitchener State of the City Address
Posted Mar 30, 2012 11:27:05 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr gave his State of the City Address and focused a lot of attention on how much the city has grown over the past hundred years.
This June, Kitchener will officially celebrate 100 years of cityhood and Mayor Zehr took those in attendance of today’s address through the accomplishments of the city.
Kitchener has grown on a number of fronts, and in his speech, Zehr touched on several aspects of that, including the boathouse and the growing music scene,”It’s not just about business, although the independent music scene is a business, but it’s about the quality of life and about adding character to the community and where people can enjoy themselves, as well as what they do normally in their day to day work.”
Zehr also says over the past hundred years, Kitchener has matured, “We’ve matured as a community, there’s no question about that. We’ve not only modernized, but we’ve also become more caring as a community and we’ve also changed in the digital format and the knowledge economy.”
He notes that looking back 10 years he knew they had to do something dramatic, but had no idea the tech sector would have grown to where it is today, “Did I have it clear in my mind as to what exactly what form it would take, absolutely not. But we knew we had to do something dramatic to make a change, make a statement and that people would sit up and take notice. And then we started the momentum and the ball rolling and it’s now growing on it’s own merits and not necessarily having to be spoon-fed.”
