HUNTINGTON BEACH : 2 Travel to Japan to Cement Sister City Ties
Bearing gifts and goodwill from Surf City, Mayor Victor Leipzig and Councilman Ralph Bauer traveled this week to Anjo, Japan, Huntington Beach’s sister city, to strengthen ties between the two.
The city officials were invited by Anjo’s mayor to spend a week there. The trip is being paid for by the Japanese city, Bauer said before he and Leipzig left for Japan on Wednesday.
Bauer said that besides spreading goodwill and giving Anjo officials gifts, including a Surf City surfboard clock, they hope to improve business relations with Japan.
“I think it’s very important to establish some kind of relationship and develop some mutual trust,” Bauer said, adding that they will return next Friday.
Deputy City Administrator Richard Barnard said the sister city effort is a way to expand an appreciation of each other’s culture.
“We want to maintain the sister city relationship, and one way to do that is to go visit each other,” Barnard said.
During its 13-year relationship with Anjo, Huntington Beach has been visited by Japanese youths and, recently, Anjo city officials. There has also been an exchange of artworks, and Anjo raised nearly $100,000 toward the rebuilding of Huntington Beach’s pier.
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