By City Scoop from the February 2011 Edition
By City Hall Scoop on January 28, 2011
The good people of Manzanillo, Mexico have a message for you, ST. Paul, and it’s this: rock on!
A small delegation from the beautiful, beachy Manzanillo, St. Paul’s sister city on the Mexican Pacific coast near Puerto Vallarta, showed up in City Hall on Wednesday, fresh from a spine tingling trip to the Mall of America. They were all smiles and thank-yous. “It’s the most important sister-city relationship we have – St. Paul-Manzanillo,” said Francisco Cotera, president of his city’s sister-city committee, which his wife also sits on.
(The scoop is not trying to get Cotera in trouble with anyone or anything, but Manzanillo also has sister-city status with Flagstaff, Arizona and San Pablo, California. Ouch! Take that Flagstaff! Feel the burn! Totally faced faced faced faced!)
The Manzanillo-St.Paul relationship has consisted of more than just proclamations and plaques. Since 2001, St.Paul has donated an ambulance, a fire truck and oodles of fire fighter training. A bookmobile left the Twin Cities for Manzanillo, which is popular and touristy but still pretty poor, in 2006.
St Paulites, joined by the good people of the Roseville Rotary Club, have also donated computes, school buses, and even a “Peanuts” statue, and there have been high-fives and thumbs up all along.
The sister-city committee arrived Tuesday and took a short tour of the Twin-Cities, courtesy of St.Paul Convention and Visitors Authority, making a special stop at Mall of America. (Don’t we all?) “I had to pull them out of there,” quipped Cotera.
They will head back to Manzanillo on Sunday.
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Manzanillo Sun’s eMagazine written by local authors about living in Manzanillo and Mexico, since 2009
