Mayor Jim Ross lamented at a city council meeting that he has “been screaming for two years” to add to Arlington’s sister city list but doesn’t have much to show for it.
Sister city programs connect municipalities from around the world who want to collaborate on education, business and humanitarian efforts. Arlington holds one of the longest-running sister city relationships with the German town of Bad Königshofen.
However, where other large Texas cities have several sister city partnerships, Arlington has one. That means the city’s losing out on opportunities, Ross said.
“We have zero sister city relationships that benefit us from a business or education perspective at all,” he said at a work session Tuesday afternoon.
Arlington City Council members said they need to work with the community to explain the benefits of partnerships, and then pool logistic and financial interests together.
Fort Worth’s Sister Cities International, for example, runs on $1.5 million, the vast majority of which is raised by local business owners and communities in town, said Arlington City Manager Trey Yelverton.
“You’ve got to find the energy that’s in your community from the business leaders to the residents to the students that want to advance these particular relations,” he said. “It won’t be done by the city.”
Council members also questioned the Arlington Sister City program’s operations.
The city pays former District 2 Council Member Sheri Capehart $20,000 per year to manage the program and has created a study group to explore ways to grow the program. Capehart is also a board member of Sister Cities International, the nonprofit founded by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to facilitate new and existing partnerships.
Current District 2 Council Member Raul Gonzalez said he’s received questions from the community asking why Capehart was appointed, and what the program is doing.
“I know we’ve heard from many community members wondering why we’re not growing our program, why we’re not doing more," Gonzalez said.
Yelverton said Capehart is the most knowledgeable person on the history of the Sister Cities program. Capehart could not be reached for comment.
New, old Arlington sister cities
Capehart and her group have explored partnerships in Mexico; the Canadian city of Windsor; Rothenburg, Germany; and Santo Domingo in Ecuador.
Rothenburg officials will visit Arlington Nov. 21-25, and Lord Mayor Markus Naser will open the Arlington Christkindl Market. Delegates from both cities have explored a partnership with UT Arlington and Aachen University for an unspecified multidisciplinary project.
Ross and District 2 council member Raul Gonzalez met last May with Arlington firefighters and a delegation from Santo Domingo, Ecuador, to discuss a sister city partnership. Ross said during the meeting the discussions have not progressed. The partnership would make it easier for the Lone Star Bomberos, a nonprofit organization of firefighters, to deliver equipment to Santo Domingo’s fire agency.
Arlington will field about 32 visitors from Bad Königshofen Sept. 24-29 for a belated 70th anniversary celebration.
The partnership grew from a pen pal relationship between two residents to a humanitarian relationship. Arlington residents collected and shipped supplies to the town as it experienced an influx of refugees from communist East Germany.
Arlington residents most recently donated more than $32,000 to aid Ukrainian refugees who sought refuge in the German city.
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