When I said that 2011 was going to be the year of "Sister Cities" for Riverside, I had no idea that it would become the most remarkable 12 months in the City’s international history.
In March, I hosted Erlangen (Germany) Mayor Dr. Siegfried Balleis. Mayor Balleis, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nurnberg (FAUEN) Chancellor Thomas Shoeck, Erlangen Environmental Chief Marlene Wuestner, FAUEN Professor Dr. Andreas Falke, International Relations Director Peter Steger, and Mrs. Angelika Balleis were in Riverside at my invitation to further advance a sister city relationship between Riverside and Erlangen.
The delegation toured Riverside by bicycle, had discussions with City and County economic development staff, visited with university officials from the University of California Riverside (UCR), Cal Baptist University (CBU) and La Sierra University (LSU), attended Rotary Club meetings, and met with the membership of the International Relations Council (IRC). Dr. Balleis delivered the 2011 Randall Lewis Public Policy Lecture at UCR on his city’s rise to Germany’s Number 1 ranked city and economic powerhouse.
On March 11, we learned to our horror, the devastation that a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami brought upon Sendai, our Japanese sister city and partner for 60 years. We in Riverside knew that we had to respond as we had never before. Quickly a donations web page was set up on the City’s website, and the donations started pouring in; from school children, firefighters, college students, churches, City and County employees, and community organizations. Within a month, we had raised more than $500,000.
On May 5 and 6, I visited Sendai to see for myself the devastation from the tsunami. I was accompanied by RUSD Board Vice President Dr. Chuck Beaty, John North High School Assistant Principal Rich Davis, IRC Sendai Committee co-chairs Yoko Boucher and Karla Adams, and International Relations Officer Lalit Acharya.
The destruction caused by waves up to 100 feet high was unlike anything I have ever seen. The Sendai government says that it will take billions of dollars and several years to recover and rebuild. During my visit, I presented Sendai Mayor Emiko Okuyama with a relief check for $500,000. The money is being used to equip volunteers engaged in rescue and recovery efforts.
To date, nearly $590,000 has been collected by Riverside for the Sendai relief effort. To my knowledge, this is the largest such effort in sister city history. Funds collected since my visit to Sendai are being carried to Sendai by various Riverside organizations.
From Sendai, I traveled to China with an economic development delegation. Ward 4 Councilman Paul Davis, Mr. Davis Hsu, CEO of Solar Max, Ms. Ching Liu, Chief Operating Officer of Solar Max, UCR Engineering Dean Dr. Reza Abbaschian, and Bourns Inc. CEO Gordon Bourns were among the delegates who traveled with me. We visited the cities of Shanghai, Jinjiang and Shenzhen before traveling to our sister city Jiangmen. While there, I met with Mayor Liu Hai who has since been elevated to the position of Party Secretary of Jiangmen City. Congratulations Party Secretary Liu!
In Shenzhen, our purpose was to visit with Winston Chung, the Chinese entrepreneur and inventor who recently bought a majority stake in Riverside’s MVP RV company, and has donated $13.2 million to UCR for, among other things, developing a global energy center. We are communicating with Mr. Chung on the possibility of establishing a battery manufacturing facility in Riverside.
In August, we received our second delegation of high school students from Erlangen. As before, the students were hosted by Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Bailey and IRC President and Erlangen Chair Karin Roberts. Plans are being made to send about 20 students from Riverside’s high schools to Erlangen in 2012.
On September 30 and October 1, Riverside hosted the 2011 Pan Pacific conference of Sister Cities International (SCI). The conference brought 350 delegates from the western United States, Hawaii, and Alaska, and nine Pacific Rim nations to Riverside. The conference highlighted innovative Riverside sister city practices such as the Southern California Research Initiative for Solar Energy (SC-RISE), the only research center to be based on a sister city platform, as well as Riverside’s monumental relief effort for Sendai.
Our sister cities Sendai, Obuasi (Ghana) and Gangnam (Republic of Korea) sent delegations to the conference. The Sendai delegation was led by Vice Mayor Yukimoto Ito, and the Gangnam delegation was led by Deputy Mayor Soo-Man Ro.
During the conference, Riverside unveiled its sister city sign. The sign, at the Market Street entrance to White Park in Downtown Riverside, celebrates Riverside’s eight sister cities: Sendai, Gangnam, Jiangmen, Hyderabad (India), Obuasi, and Cuautla and Ensenada (Mexico), and Erlangen.
In October, shortly after the conference, Councilman Bailey, an IRC delegation, and I traveled to Erlangen to sign the agreement officially making Erlangen Riverside’s eighth sister city, and its first in Europe. The 1,000-year-old city is ranked Number 1 in Germany on a variety of metrics, including talent dividend—there are more PhDs per capita than anywhere else—and low unemployment. The city is also home to the health care division of Siemens; the company employs about 20 percent of the city’s workforce.
While in Erlangen, we attended the city’s "Long Night of Science." This is a 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. open house involving the city’s government, university and research centers that attracts about 30,000 residents. The objective of Long Night of Science is to showcase the city’s accomplishments in the arts and sciences to residents, build pride in the city, and encourage youth to seek careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. I have created a task force to bring this concept back to Riverside as the "Long Night of Arts & Innovation."
Good things are already happening from this relationship. We have an active high school exchange, and the Nurnberg based company SEMIKRON has established an engineering scholarship at the UCR Bourns College of Engineering. UCR and FAUEN have also started looking into an MOU. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy Holiday season...
Mayor's Message: A Special Sister City Appeal
Our friends in our sister city of Sendai, Japan are in dire need. The once beautiful,
modern city of 1 million is at the epicenter of the triple disaster first a record breaking
9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed immediately by a devastating tsunami which tore through
many of its neighborhoods, and finally a nuclear crisis that is threatening the spread of
radiation.
Sendai has been our sister city for more than 50 years, making it the oldest sister city
relationship in the United States. Our ties with Sendai are not just long, they are deep
and include many educational, economic and cultural connections. Sendai residents recently
designed and constructed a beautiful Japanese Garden in our own White Park in downtown
Riverside as a lasting and elegant gift to commemorate our friendship.
We have finally restored communications with City Hall in Sendai and received a letter
from Mayor Emiko Okuyama in which she outlined the unprecedented disaster recovery
situation they are now dealing with: "It has been eight days since the earthquake and
tsunami. We have been doing our best to help those affected and to restore the city.
However, Sendai's lifeline such as gas, electricity, water, roads, railways are heavily
damaged and a large number of people are without essentials. Furthermore, approximately
20,000 people have evacuated to designated refuge areas". We realize that the relationship
with Riverside is invaluable to Sendai and we would very much appreciate any kind of
monetary assistance the city could provide us with.
Our friends need our help.
We have a historic opportunity to set a national example by coming to our sister city's
aid, quickly and decisively, just as they would be among the first to come to our aid
should disaster ever befall us. They are in every sense of the word Riverside's neighbor;
they just happen to be halfway around the globe.
With this call to action I encourage everyone who calls Riverside home to do what you
can to donate; even ten dollars each would make a difference. Visit our donation site at
www.riversideca.gov/sendairelief
where 100% of the donated funds will go directly to Sendai. City, County and Community have
already come together and met our first target of $250,000. We are now stretching for
another $250,000 in direct financial aid to our sister city. Join me now as we show Sendai,
and the nation, what it means to extend a hand to friends in need.
This op-ed by Mayor Loveridge was published in the March 21 edition of The
Press-Enterprise newspaper.
December is here and we are ending 2010 on a high international note.
Earlier this month, I completed my term as President of the National League of
Cities (NLC). As NLC President, I was able to advance many of the NLC's sustainable and
green policies around the world.
In October, I led a NLC delegation to the European Green Capital Conference in
Stockholm, Sweden. We represented 10 American cities that have taken remarkable steps
towards sustainability, and we signed SAGA, a Swedish-American Green Alliance to share
sustainability success stories.
Upon my return from Stockholm, I traveled to Gangnam, our Korean Sister City, to
deliver a keynote address at the 4th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy
Cities. I visited the Gangnam-University of California Riverside (UCR) International
Education Center and discussed ways of bringing the Center and the City closer. I met
with the leadership of the Gangnam Chamber of Commerce to explore mutual economic
opportunities. I also met with newly elected Gangnam Mayor Dr. Yeon Hee Shin and
discussed next steps in the Sister City relationship between our two cities. These
include closer collaboration between UCR, City and Gangnam in the areas of solar
energy, smart medicine, e-governance, and the innovation economy.
International Relations Council (IRC) President Dr. Larry Geraty, UCR Southern
California Research Initiative for Solar Energy (SC-RISE) Managing Director Dr. Alfredo
Martinez-Morales, Innovation Corp. President Amro Albanna, IRC Gangnam Co-Chair Paul
Song, Korean War Veteran Jack Sims, and Lalit Acharya from my office accompanied me on
this visit.
In many ways, Gangnam is the Beverly Hills and Manhattan of Seoul. It is the Korean
capital's richest district and was host to the 2010 G20 Summit. It is also where Korean
patriot Dosan Ahn Chang Ho is buried in a memorial park named after him. Dosan Ahn
Chang Ho, whose monument is in downtown Riverside, founded the United States' first
permanent Korean-American settlement in Riverside.
Shortly after I returned from Gangnam, I led a Riverside delegation to Chicago where
we competed in the 2010 International Awards for Liveable Communities. Competing
against the best in its population class, Riverside won the LIVCOM Silver Award, making
it one of the most liveable communities in the world.
During Thanksgiving Week, we hosted a delegation from Jiangmen, our Sister City in
China. The delegation was led by Mr. Liang Qingzhao, Executive Vice Chairman of the
People's Congress of Jiangmen. Mr. Liang participated in the lighting ceremony of the
City's Festival of Lights. During their visit, which coincided with a Jiangmen art
exhibition at the Riverside Community Arts Association and a Jiangmen photo exhibition
at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, the delegation was able to experience an old
fashioned Thanksgiving Dinner.
2010 was also the year we completed an International Strategic Plan which has since
been repositioned under Route 1 of the Seizing Our Destiny document, the City's
visionary strategic plan and map for the next decade.
2011 promises to be no less intense. In January we will be hosting a delegation from
Ismailia, an Egyptian city on the Suez Canal. The delegation will be in Riverside to
further explore the potential for a Sister City relationship. The United States-Mexico
Sister City Association will also be hosting its first ever annual conference in
Riverside in January.
More on that in my next message"Happy Holidays until then!
Moving from summer into fall, our international activities showed no signs of
slowing down. Our focus was on educational exchanges which I see as a significant
component of our Sister City relationships.
When I was in Erlangen, Germany earlier this year, I met Councilwoman Felizitas
Traub-Eichhorn, a high school teacher by profession, and invited her to visit Riverside
along with a delegation of high school students. Councilwoman Traub-Eichhorn took me up
on my offer and we welcomed her, her son Timon, and five student ambassadors, Ellen
Rojek, Lorena Els, Anna Kuczera, Silas Bahr and Martin Mikk to Riverside.
During her week long stay in Riverside at the home of Bernie and Tim Titus,
Councilwoman Traub-Eichhorn met with our City Council members, City Manager Brad Hudson
and senior City staff, International Relations Council (IRC) President Larry Geraty,
RCCD Chancellor Greg Gray, and RUSD and Alvord superintendents Rick Miller and Wendell
Tucker. She shadowed Councilman Rusty Bailey, himself a high school teacher, and
Principal Wade Coe at Poly High. A bicycle enthusiast, she rode the Santa Ana River
Trail all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The Erlangen student ambassadors, all from Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium, spent three
weeks in Riverside, their last two at Poly High experiencing the start of school year.
They all had home stays, and I would like to thank the Webb, Tovar, Kelly, Pietro, and
Weggeland families for hosting them, showing them around Riverside and Southern
California, and giving them a taste of the Riverside and California lifestyle.
As you know from my previous messages, we are seriously exploring the possibility of
a Sister City relationship between Riverside and Erlangen. Councilman Bailey, IRC
President Geraty, IRC Erlangen Chair Karin Roberts, Councilwoman Traub-Eichhorn and I
are hoping that annual high school exchanges will become the cornerstone of this
relationship. We anticipate sending student ambassadors from Poly High to Erlangen next
year to continue the goodwill that was generated by the visit of our guests.
Stay tuned for more on this.
About the same time, I met with some 30 students from our Chinese Sister City
Jiangmen's "No. 1 High School. They were in Riverside to visit John North High, RCC
and UCR. I have visited "No. 1 High School during my visits to Jiangmen, and it
educates and graduates some of the smartest kids in China. Their visit was a response
to a 2008 visit to Jiangmen by the John North Blue Star Regiment marching band.
I am getting ready to travel to our Korean Sister City Gangnam to deliver a keynote
address at the 4th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities. I will also be
in Stockholm, Sweden, attending the European Green Capital Conference as President of
the National League of Cities.
More about that in my next message...
Summer 2010 is here, and we are off to a good start on the international front.
I take pride that Sister Cities International (SCI) has chosen Riverside to receive
its 2010 Sustainable Energy Development Innovation Award. The award is given annually
to cities that creatively use the Sister City platform to develop and promote
sustainable energy.
Riverside received the award for working with University of California Riverside
(UCR) and its partner, Japan Sister City Sendai's Tohoku University, to develop the
Southern California Research Initiative for Solar Energy (SC-RISE) at the UCR Bourns
College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT).
During the 2007 50th anniversary celebration of the historic Sister City
relationship between Riverside and Sendai, I challenged UCR and Tohoku University to
join Riverside and Sendai in creating a new city-university model of Sister City
cooperation that would create lasting value over the next 50 years, and provide a
framework for future Sister City relationships.
SC-RISE is the result of that challenge. Launched in 2009 with major support from
the City, SC-RISE harnesses and brings together the resources of four major players
engaged in significant and innovative solar energy research, development, education,
and/or applications.
This award follows on the heels of the recently announced Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) grant to the Obuasi (Ghana)
Committee of the International Relations Council (IRC) for health projects in
Obuasi.
2010 marks the third year that Riverside has won a major award from SCI. In 2008,
Riverside received SCI's "Best Overall Program award for its 50th Sendai anniversary
celebration; in 2009, Riverside won SCI's Innovation award for Arts and Culture for an
art exchange program with Mexico Sister Cities Cuautla and Ensenada.
It takes great leadership to make great things happen.
The remarkable progress IRC has made is significantly due to its president, Larry
Geraty. IRC is on its way to financial independence, thanks to his highly successful
fund-raising March 2010 tour of Jordan and Egypt. It collaborated with the City's Human
Relations Commission (HRC) to organize 2009 Race Equality Week. It is a partner in an
IRC/HRC/UCR National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) grant application for a tolerance
conference in March, 2011. It may bring Riverside its 8th and 9th Sister Cities in
Erlangen (Germany), and Ismailia (Egypt). And, it will be hosting the 2011 SCI Regional
Conference in Riverside.
Larry will continue as president of IRC through 2011. For his inspiring leadership,
I awarded him Mayor's Outstanding International Service Award for 2010. Kudos,
Larry!
An everyday hero for IRC is Barb Ryon. A long standing member, she is in many ways
the glue that holds the organization together. She keeps its books, manages its
finances, and makes sure that IRC's nonprofit status is in good standing. Larry Geraty
presented her with the 2010 President's Award for Outstanding and Dedicated Service to
the IRC. I cannot think of anyone more deserving. Kudos, Barb!
March and April represented the "best of times for our international activities and
our Sister City program.
As President of the National League of Cities, I attended the 2010 World Urban Forum
in Rio de Janeiro (March 22-26) as part of a 53-member U.S. delegation led by Housing
and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan. This was the first time ever that
a city leader had been included in a United States delegation to the Forum. At the
Forum, I moderated a HUD panel on fair housing policies and sustainable
development.
While I was in Brazil, Dr. Lawrence Geraty, President of the International Relations
Council (IRC), led an expedition to Jordan and Egypt that was also a significant
fundraiser for the IRC.
Dr. Geraty, Chair Omar Zaki of the IRC Muslim World Sister City Initiative, and Dr.
Lalit Acharya from my office also visited the Egyptian city of Ismailia on the banks of
the Suez Canal to explore its potential as a Sister City. We select Sister Cities based
on likely mutual benefits in three areas: economic development, education, and cultural
opportunities. Based on these criteria, the prospects for Ismailia look good.
Congratulations are in order for Rachel Meeker, winner of the Southern California
Sister Cities Association (SOCAL) 2010 Sister Cities Scholarship. Ms. Meeker is a
graduate student of religious studies at UCR and Program Coordinator for Child Leader
Project, a Clinton Global Initiative award winning program that teaches leadership
skills to children in India. She was nominated by the Hyderabad (India) Sister City
Committee of the IRC.
Congratulations are also in order for the IRC.
We learned that the Obuasi (Ghana) Sister City Committee of the IRC has been awarded
a Bill and Melinda Gates Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) grant of
$115,000 by Sister Cities International (SCI) for health projects in Obuasi. In
addition, the Committee will receive $10,000 for operational expenses and six
round-trip tickets to Obuasi over the two-year period of the grant.
We also learned that SCI has chosen Riverside as the site for its first ever 2011
Regional Conference. In addition to being an honor Riverside beat out larger
metropolises nationwide in its winning bid the conference will bring delegates filling
hotel rooms in Downtown Riverside September 30 through October 2, 2011. SCI CEO Patrick
Madden will be visiting Riverside in late May to formalize the contract.
The Gates grant and Riverside's choice as the site for the 2011 SCI conference are
more signs of the creative power and economic potential of Riverside's Sister City
program, and of Riverside itself as a City of Arts and Innovation.
Kudos!
It is with deep sadness, and with a personal sense of loss, that I learned of the
demise of former Sendai (Japan) Mayor Hajimu Fujii.
Sendai has lost a noble son and an outstanding leader, and Riverside a great friend
and advocate.
During his long tenure as Mayor of Sendai (1993-2005), and as Director of the Sendai
International Relations Association, Mr. Fujii left a significant mark on the Sister
City relationship between Riverside and Sendai.
Mr. Fujii's last visit to Riverside was in 2007 as leader of a Sendai delegation for
the 50th anniversary celebration of the Sister City relationship between our two
cities. The enduring image I have is of him wielding a baton as guest conductor of the
Riverside County Philharmonic at a special performance commemorating the historic
occasion.
We in Riverside will always remember his playful wit, his wisdom, and his gentle
smile. May his soul rest in peace.
In 2010, Riverside's international profile is as high as ever.
We started the year by receiving a 2010 Smart 21 Community award from the
organization Intelligent Community Forum. We were one of 21 cities worldwide chosen to
receive this distinction for our commitment to broadband, narrowing the digital divide
and for our IT infrastructure. Kudos to Steve Reneker and our IT Department.
We also launched the second and updated edition of our highly successful
international brochure. You can view it on this page.
On February 4, I delivered a keynote address at 2010 ENVIETECH International
Congress and Exhibition on Environmental Technology and Renewable Energy in Vienna. I
was there as the guest of the Austrian government representing the City, National
League of Cities, Governor Schwarzenegger and the State of California.
My speech focused on California environmental initiatives, Assembly Bill 32 and
Senate Bill 375, our City's Green Action Plan and the numerous awards our City has
received, including the "Emerald City designation the State's first by the California
Department of Conservation.
After the convention, I visited the European Center for Renewable Energy (ECRE) in
the Austrian town of Gussing at the invitation of Mayor Peter Vadasz. ECRE is at the
center of a remarkable effort by Gussing to become energy independent by developing a
100 percent renewable energy portfolio. It has also become an economic engine,
attracting 35,000 international visitors annually to this town of 4,000. More than 50
renewable energy companies have set up shop in Gussing, creating 1,100 jobs. This is a
lesson worth noting for Riverside.
FYI, Gussing is the birthplace of Karin Roberts, Executive Director, Habitat for
Humanity, Board Member of the International Relations Council of Riverside (IRC), and
Chair of the IRC Erlangen Sister City Initiative.
En route Vienna, I stopped in Erlangen, Germany as a guest of that city to explore
the possibility of a Sister City relationship. My other objective was to explore the
potential for a collaborative relationship between Friedrich-Alexander Universit�t
Erlangen-N�rnberg and University of California Riverside (UCR). I met with Mayor
Siegfried Balleis, University Chancellor Dr. Thomas A.H. Sch�ck, Dr. Thomas Stockmeier,
Chief Technical Officer of the power electronics giant SEMIKRON, Dr. Andreas Falke of
the German-American Institute, and many others to further these objectives.
Erlangen is a 1,000 year old city that is sometimes called "Siemens City because of
the 20,000 Siemens employees who work and live there. In a lighter vein, the city
sometimes refers to the equation ER = MP3 as its motto the MP3 music compression format
was invented in Erlangen (ER) by the Fraunhofer Institute, Germany's leading applied
science and technology think tank.
A university and green community like Riverside, Erlangen offers many possibilities.
I have invited Mayor Balleis and Chancellor Sch�ck to visit Riverside and UCR, and also
to send over a group of five high school exchange students to our City.
I was accompanied on this trip by Dr. Reza Abbaschian, Dean of UCR's Bourns College
of Engineering, Ms. Roberts, and Dr. Lalit Acharya from my office.
Moving deep into Fall, we have been busier than ever.
First, kudos to North High's student newspaper, The North Star, for setting new
standards of journalistic excellence! Editor-in-Chief Malcolm Clayton, and reporters
Alice Koga and Michelle Shin attended every one of our 2009 Race Equality Week events,
and provided thoughtful and excellent reports on them.
I had an enjoyable visit with members of the Orange Club of Sendai, in Riverside to
work on the Japanese Garden in White Park. The Garden was Sendai's gift to Riverside in
2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sister City relationship between the
two cities. Orange Club members are complementing the terrific work by Parks,
Recreation, and Community Services to keep the Garden looking beautiful.
It is always exciting meeting students from other cultures. I had a chance to meet
with some of the 10 Egyptian students who are enrolled at Riverside Community College
as part of the California Community Colleges Egypt Initiative. Their visit was
particularly meaningful as the International Relations Council (IRC) gets ready to
explore the potential for a Sister City in the Muslim world through a Jordan-Egypt trip
that is being planned for March 2010. The trip will be led by IRC President Dr. Larry
Geraty, a world renowned archeologist who has been excavating in Jordan for the past 40
years.
Some other congratulations are in order. The Honorable Emiko Okuyama has been
elected as Mayor of Sendai. I am looking forward to working with her on strengthening
and expanding the historic ties that bind our two cities. She succeeds the Honorable
Katsuhiko Umehara who retired at the end of his term in August.
And some farewells. My friend and Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, Dr. Y.S.
R. Reddy died tragically in a helicopter crash. His passing leaves a void in the deep
Sister City bonds Riverside has with Hyderabad, India.
Soon, UCR will be breaking ground on a solar innovation center at its Center for
Environmental Research & Technology. The center is the result of a collaborative
effort by Riverside, UCR, Sendai, Sendai's Tohoku University, and other partners to
bring cutting-edge solar technology to our region. It also represents the platform on
which I hope our historic relationship with Sendai will grow and flourish over the next
50 years.
This has been a busy summer in international relations.
In July, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our Sister City relationship with
Gangnam, Republic of Korea, at a highly successful and well attended reception at the
Grier Pavilion. Later that month, our City was awarded the 2009 Sister Cities
International (SCI) Innovation award in Arts and Culture for cities with populations
less than 500,000 for an artist exchange project created by Mark Schooley, Executive
Director, Riverside Community Arts Association, and Board Member, International
Relations Council (IRC) of Riverside. Mr. Schooley's artist exchange project,
"Riverside Views exhibited works by 25 artists from our Mexico sister cities, Cuautla
and Ensenada in Riverside, and works by 25 Riverside artists in those cities.
August saw us welcoming 10 students from Egypt who will be spending the next 10 months
studying at RCC as part of a California Community Colleges Egypt program. August also
saw us bid farewell to four students from the Republic of Korea who spent 16 weeks
interning in the City's IT Department under the Mayor's International Internship
Program.
We celebrated Race Equality Week in September with a uniquely international flavor,
highlighting the cultures of our seven sister cities. During that same time, we hosted
a delegation from Obuasi, Ghana, our newest Sister City. Obuasi Mayor John Ackon and
his delegation participated in many of the events of Race Equality Week, most notably
in the California Peace Crane Project event at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum where
he and I made origami cranes in memory of Japanese-Americans sent to internment camps
in World War II. A highlight of the visit was a Peace Concert held by the IRC Obuasi
Committee at White Park.
Later this month, we will be welcoming a citizen delegation from Sendai, Japan, our
sister for 52 years. This is the oldest continuous Sister City relationship in the
United States. We were awarded 2008 SCI award for Best Overall Program for our
celebration of the 50th anniversary of the relationship. But more about that next
month...
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