October 14, 2002

Honorable Michael L. Rama
Vice Mayor
City of Cebu
Suite 1507, ALAI-FGU Center
Cebu Business Park
Cebu City, Republic of the Philippines

Dear Mr. Rama:

It is with great pleasure that we received your letter regarding the current and future partnership between Fort Collins and Cebu.

Fort Collins has viewed the initial partnership with Cebu focusing on solid waste management and environmental projects as not only useful and productive, but an exemplary example of what international municipal cooperation should look like.

We are also flattered by your request to establish a formal sister-city relationship with Fort Collins. Currently, it is not the City’s policy to have Sister City relationships.

However, a month ago, the City started a policy to develop a “Cities of Friendship” partnership with Cebu. “Cities of Friendship”(COF), similar to Sister Cities, is the educational, cultural, and civic partnership between Fort Collins and a community who we feel our citizens can benefit from being associated with. We have chosen a different path – similar to Sister Cities – but not quite as formal. A significant portion of our community views “Sister Cities” relationships as an excuse for political officials to travel to luxurious locations. We feel this image could compromise our ability to be seen as excellent stewards of city resources. “Cities of Friendship” allows us to avoid this perception.

We see COF as not only an opportunity to extend goodwill, but a chance for both communities to have a meaningful exchange with friends from a different part of the world. We consider the partnership to have three essential components: 1) a willingness to learn and appreciate the culture and perspective of the COF; 2) a willingness to provide an opportunity to teach the COF about the culture, environment and perspective of Fort Collins; and 3) a commitment towards creating tangible products or collaborations that satisfy the spirit of this endeavor.

We feel strongly that the greatest COF partnership is one that is City Hall driven, yet not dominated by City Hall. City Hall should serve as the symbolic and practical source of contact. The Mayors should serve as chief liaisons and the political source of contact between Fort Collins and Cebu. They should host appropriate exchanges and communicate to their respective communities why COFs are so important. City Hall staff should maintain the contact information, as well as ensure that the appropriate avenues of communication remain current. We also would like to see our departments exchange ideas and stories about the challenges and victories of local government.

Despite this significant alliance between our governments, we see the heart of the COF relationship as one where not City employees or officials benefit, but where the community as a whole can appreciate what it means to have a COF partnership. We would like to see possible partnerships between the businesses, schools, and civic organizations. We would also like to plan and implement activities that embody this COF friendship. Such planned activities could be exchanges, a Filipino celebration in Fort Collins, an exchange of citizens and officials where people can really address their strengths and weaknesses; a broad based summit on what it means to be in partnership with another community. Between these more formal events, email and teleconferencing around key issues can be seen as effective tools to help keep our partnership dynamic and meaningful.

We believe a citizen’s committee, made up of representatives of different aspects of our communities, could be the driving force in helping form these partnerships and plan these events.

Needless to say, as I write these ideas, I am very excited about the possibilities of this partnership. I hope that you and your staff can share this enthusiasm as we plan the next step in becoming Cities of Friendship.

Sincerely,

Ray Martinez

Mayor

/sek

City Council Members
John F. Fischbach, City Manager