Dagupan renews pact with Milpitas
VICE Mayor Belen Fernandez led a delegation from Dagupan City to the United States on Saturday to renew the sisterhood agreement between Dagupan and Milpitas City in California.
Fernandez and the new mayor of Milpitas City, Robert Livengood, will sign the renewal agreement for another five years.
Livengood succeeded Mayor Jose Esteves, a Dagupeño, who just completed his term.
The other members of the Dagupan delegation are Councilors Farah Decano and Karlos Reyna, and City Administrator Alvin Fernandez.
The previous sisterhood agreement signed by Dagupan and Milpitas in April 2003 was in effect until 2005.
“But this time, the agreement is for five years, which means that the two cities have really deepened their relationships across the years through mutual trust,” Decano said.
The first sister-city agreement was signed in behalf of Dagupan by then vice mayor and now City Administrator Alvin Fernandez.
Decano said the delegation will study and observe the waste management policies of Milpitas.
“We would like also to find out how Milpitas, being a high-tech city, is battling cyber trafficking for the city’s benefit,” she added. The National Bureau of Investigation determined earlier that cyber trafficking is proliferating in Dagupan City.
At the same time, Decano said the delegation will be promoting the Pawil Dagupan Program for the Christmas and city fiesta celebration this year.
Reyna, recently appointed by Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr. as hermano mayor of the 2009 Dagupan City Fiesta in December, will officially extend the invitation for the fiesta to Milpitas residents.
Vice Mayor Fernandez will promote the Bangus Festival 2010 to US-based Dagupeños.
“We also invite our city mates in the U.S. to come home to see for themselves the progress made in Dagupan today in spite of the calamities that befell us, like the 1990 earthquake and Typhoon Cosme,” Fernandez said.
She said the delegation will meet with Dagupan associations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York to discuss promotion plans for the city. — LM
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