Suzanne Timbrouck has been teaching math at Kingston High School for 27 years. She’s also a mom of six now-adult children and a native of Pawling. Her husband Brian just retired after serving 32 years with the Kingston Fire Department. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Kingston Wire: How did you or your family come to Kingston?

Suzanne Timbrouck: I came to Kingston for a job in 1988 and met my future husband. He was born and raised in Kingston, as was his father before him. The Timbroucks are a large homegrown Kingston family and I was lucky enough to marry into it. My husband told me if we were going to get married and start a family then it had to be in Kingston! He graduated from KHS (as did his father before him) and he knew it was the place for our diverse family to grow up. He was also a real stickler about wanting his kids to go to KHS because they would have every opportunity. You name it, it was offered at KHS, and no other school in the county (and barely any other school in the state) could match it. I guess now that I’ve been here going on 40 years I qualify as saying, “I’m from Kingston.” We have six kids who were all born here, raised in the home we bought over 30 years ago, and graduated from KHS. He was right.

KW: What do you like about Kingston?

ST: What do I like about Kingston? Can I be honest? I like it less right now than I did over the past 35 years. It seems to me we have lost all that we loved about it. All the reasons my husband told me we had to be here for don’t seem to still hold true. We have had too large an influx of people not from here who seem to want to change everything.

What did I always love about Kingston? That it was very diverse and everyone got along. That both the schools and the city had sports leagues for kids and adults. That you could find weekend activities of all sorts for all ages. That everybody knew everybody, and the whole community felt a lot like one big family. We have such diversity and culture. And if you lived and worked here you could afford to buy a house. Your kids could go through the Kingston school district, get a job and afford to stay here.

Unfortunately, that statement is no longer true. Kingstonians have been priced out of their own city. Native Kingston businesses have closed as new, expensive places have opened up to cater to non-Kingstonians. We have been priced out, and now our kids all have to leave Kingston if they want to buy a house, get a good job and start a family. This breaks my heart after so many generations of this family have been here.

KW: What would you change about Kingston?

ST: I would like to undo some of the changes of the last five or so years. Kingston was always so special, and if you moved here because you loved it and embraced it, you would find out just how special. That’s what I did. Nowhere is perfect and I can’t argue that we could have used a little facelift, or some new ideas and people. But we sure didn’t need a complete overhaul and rebrand to the point that we are unrecognizable. We definitely have growing pains and I wish we were more thoughtful about growth and change and retaining the core of what there was to love here. Come here and join who we are – that’s what I did. Don’t come here and set about changing everything.

KW: What do you think Kingston will be like in 10 years?

ST: If we keep going like we are currently, it won’t be any place I want to be. But if we could be more thoughtful about any growth or change and balance “old-school Kingston” with a few affordable and reasonable upgrades, it would be great. I’m not against people coming here. I’m just against people coming here saying, “This is perfect, now let’s change everything." I really hope in 10 years Kingston has found the right balance and that it’s still a place I would choose to live in.