A proclamation recognizing and celebrating Denver’s Sister City relationships and the success of Denver Sister Cities International.
All right. We're going to move on to our second proclamation. Councilwoman Black, will you please read proclamation seven, six, six. Thank you, Mr. President. Proclamation number 60766. Whereas, following the mayhem of World War Two in 1948, Denver Sister Cities International was founded with a relationship with breast France. Denver now has ten sister cities, each of which has a public park named in its honor as a tribute to the importance of these relationships. And. Whereas, Denver Sister Cities International hosted the fourth Annual Worldwide Festival, a free daylong celebration of the cultures of Denver's global sister cities. And. Whereas, memorable delegations from each of Denver sister cities were formally invited to participate in Denver's World Wide Festival and in meetings with municipal officials, area businesses, educational and cultural entities and tourism offices to further strengthen the many impacts of these powerful relationships. And. Whereas, 2016 marks major anniversaries of two of Denver's ten sister cities. Denver and Kunming. A relationship established in 1986, is celebrating 30 years as sister cities and the Denver Ulaanbaatar Sisterhood, established in 2001, celebrates 15 years. And. Whereas, Denver Sister Cities International has been named the 2016 best overall program for a city with a population greater than 500,000 by Sister Cities, International proudly expanding Denver's list of honors and awards. This award is based on the high level of activity and impact proven by Denver Sister Cities and our global sisters. And. Whereas, the city and county of Denver and Denver Sister Cities International have a strong and mutually supportive and cooperative relationship. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Council heartily welcomes our esteemed guest colleagues and friends from our sister cities to night and always, and offers congratulations and gratitude for their part in winning this prestigious award to our Fair City. Section two that the Council congratulates the many volunteers of Denver Sister Cities International who worked tirelessly to bring this honor home and to keep Denver's global connections vibrant and innovative. Section three that the Clerk of the city and County of Denver shall attest and affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and transmit a copy thereof to Denver Sister Cities International. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Your motion to adopt. Thank you. Mr. President, I move that proclamation. Seven, six, six. Be adopted. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of council. First up. Councilwoman Black. Thank you. Mr. President, I'm really excited to sponsor this proclamation tonight. There are ten sister cities, and I am going to read them all because it's an interesting geography lesson. Acxiom I don't know if I'm saying it right. Ethiopia. Chennai. India. Cuernavaca. Mexico. Karmiel. Israel. Kunming. China. Nairobi. Kenya. Potenza. Italy. Takayama, Japan. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Brest, France. And as the proclamation said, there is a park in Denver for each of those cities. BREST France is the most special sister city to me. Many of you may have been to the park. It's on the Cherry Creek Drive and Colorado Boulevard. It was our first sister city, and it was founded in 1948 by a teacher from East High School who, together with students, raised $32,000 to help build the Brest after World War Two. $32,000 was a lot of money for a teacher and students to raise. In 1948, breast is the westernmost point of Western Europe. It's where the Atlantic meets the English Channel, and it was devastated by World War Two. There were huge battles fought there between the allies and the Germans, and unfortunately, the beautiful medieval city was mostly destroyed . And so it has had to be rebuilt over these many years. I have a personal long history with breast. I said this last year when we had this proclamation, but my dad was on the board of Sister Cities in the seventies and in 1980 we had a young man named Frank Bellion who lived at my house and he worked for my dad. And since 1980 we have had a long relationship with that family. I've been to Brest numerous times. Members of the Bellion family have visited Denver. Frank Ens Kids have all lived at my house for a summer. His nieces and nephews have been to visit and we're going on 40 years of relationships with the Belgians. It's a very, very special relationship. Last month, I had the pleasure of giving visiting students from Brest a tour of the city and county building. And we did a little history lesson and a Denver civic lesson, which was really fun. And I'm really proud that I've been living the sister city's mission of cultural and economic exchange. Today, I had the greatest pleasure because it's a very, very small world. So we have our guests here from Brest, France, and they know Frank Bellion. Frank is the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Brest. He's actually going to be in Houston next week, and I'm going to have them all come up in a moment. But we have the deputy mayor of Brest, France, Raisa Salome, director of International and Economic Development. Julie Newitz, Director of Brest Twin Cities. Armel Geismar. And the chair her breast sister city's Lorette have Pepple who is going to refresh my French, which I did take for many years. And and Beth Hendricks is the director of Denver Sister Cities International. Really excited to learn from them that next year they're going to be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the the liberation of breast from the Germans. And so everyone will be invited to go there and attend that celebration. I plan to attend. My dad, as I've said before, was a pilot in the Army Air Corps and participated in the liberation of France. So I really look forward to that. And that's all I have to say. Thank you, Councilwoman Carlson. Gilmore. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to thank Councilwoman Black for sponsoring this proclamation. You know, in November, Councilman Clark and I were honored to be part of a mayoral delegation to Takayama. And we visited the Red Cross hospital on what seemed like an endless day of viewing different areas and hearing about what they did at the Red Cross Hospital and all of the great work. And earlier this month, I was honored to host in my family home in Montebello, a surgeon who was coming to the and shoots medical campus to receive extended education from the Red Cross hospital in Takayama. And so it was great to be able to share with her the pictures that we took. She knew exactly where the Denver sister city park was in the in the town. And just building those cultural relationships I know go a long way. And it makes Takayama Japan not seem quite so far away from Denver, Colorado, and I'm sure that she's going to come visit us again. And so I just wanted to share that. Mr. President, thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. As Councilwoman mentioned, I had the honor to visit our sister city of Tokyo, Japan, last year, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that. They. Like we have a city of Tokyo, a park. They have a city of Denver park, complete with one of our signature green Denver Park signs and even a couple of. Rocks. Shipped over from Red Rocks Park. And, you know, well, that was fun. It was really very moving when we arrived at their city hall and were greeted by hundreds of people and then went, you know, our entire delegation went and rang a peace bell right outside their city hall before entering to celebrate the peace between the United States and Japan and the relationship between Denver and Tokyo. And it was really opened my eyes to the power of the Sister Cities program. It's something that is so fantastic for our city. It does make the world a smaller place. And whenever it's a smaller place, it's a more peaceful place. And so I'm so happy to be listed as a sponsor of this proclamation. And just want to thank you, Councilwoman Black, for bring it forward. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. And I'll make a couple of comments. Thank you, Councilwoman Black, for for sponsoring this. You know, I didn't even hear the proclamation, but anytime I see Sister City involved in something, I am incredibly supportive. And one of the reasons is I call it my freshman year on city council. I found out that we had a sister city in Nairobi that was pretty much dormant at the time, and we took a delegation over there of your high school students and some nonprofits and a couple of business leaders and got the opportunity to help start or revise this partnerships, this 35 year relationship with Nairobi, which spun into a trice, a tri sister city relationship with Kunming, China. And and, you know, it is great that it's, you know, it's goodwill, it's connections and things like this. But I think there's something deeper there. I think there is a lot when when cities begin to connect, because we don't get into the global crisis issues that sometimes countries get into when they are building relationships with one another. We find common ground quickly and with all of these exchanges that my colleagues were talking about. But there's also economic opportunities which we've been seeing. And who would have thought that cities trade with each other, that we do import export opportunities and things like that? And we just got done with the deputy mayor from Kunming and she was in town. Yes. She by the way, they had an all female. Our delegation and they were dynamite just saying. Haven't seen that in a while, but she was incredible. And she talked about all these import export opportunities that we hadn't thought of before. And she talked a lot about microbrews, which was awesome. So this is an incredible opportunity and it's something that we as a city don't invest much into the Sister Cities program, yet it thrives. And I couldn't be more supportive and I hope my colleagues would get the opportunity in other Denver city residents get the opportunity to see what we do understand why we have a main park. Right. All of the history, the rich history with sister city. So thank you, Councilwoman Black. It has been moved in second to Madam Secretary. Roll call. Black Eye. Brooks Clark I by Vanessa Flynn, I Gilmore, I. Herndon I can I can eat. Lopez I knew Ortega. I Susman by Mr. President. I am a madam. Madam Secretary, clothes a resounding renounce results. 13 Eyes. 13 Eyes Proclamation 766 has been adopted. Councilwoman Black, is there anyone you would like to bring up? Yes, I would like the entire delegates up. Beth Hendricks is the executive director of Denver Sister Cities International. Come Up. Deputy Mayors. Salome. Julie. New Eats. Armel Guimard. Laurette Hempel. Their President there. Conrad Black, honorary councilor, ladies and gentlemen. 60. Eight years ago, our parents decided. For these trainings. 60 years ago. It was a very big event because. These trainings had a very important message. Other parents said No more Ras. War that. So it's very important when we see our world now, everywhere we see we are human. Kill. Human. Human. Hate, human. We can. We can accept it. Our message must. Be the same off message that other parents. Six years ago already. And. Other trainings doesn't even have. One word. Clean wrinkle. Yeah. Thank you. I think we have the honorary councilor. We have a very, very important opportunity, a big, great opportunity today to solidify this partnership. These trainings. And surely this message of peace. Because the friendship. Is like a flower which need care and attention day by day to keep it fresh and healthy. Therefore, all of us have a duty to protect this beautiful and precious flower, to nurture and nourish it. We are really very happy to see you. Everyone here. And it's the first trip for us, for Julie and me in in Denver. It's not surely the last the trip in Denver. It will be very fun for us to see you again in breast in your city of breast. And thank you for your lot today. Thank you very much for this invitation. Thank you, President CU. Thank you. Thank you for being here. All right, resolutions. Madam Secretary, will you read the resolutions.