Galway likely to reject sister city approach Santa Monica
“It’s not you, it’s us” . . . Galway City is likely to reject a proposal from Santa Monica in California for sister city status – because we do not have the resources to maintain another connection.
The seven-member Santa Monica City Council voted unanimously this month to support a request by Council member (Councillor) Kevin McKeown to begin negotiations with Galway City.
However, a Galway City Council spokesperson said this week that the local authority is not in a position to expand its twinned and sister cities programme because of a lack of resources to foster and maintain a new relationship.
“It would be lovely to make connections with all of the cities which show an interest in Galway, but it’s hard to sustain them and we would need resources.
“We are trying to consolidate our existing relationships, and are not in a position to expand, but that’s not to say we don’t want some form of relationship with Santa Monica,” the spokesperson said.
He added that Galway already has four “very strong relationships” in the United States alone – Milwaukee, Chicago, Seattle and Menlo Park.
Cllr McKeown – a former mayor – made the sister city request following a visit to Galway last month, where he spoke with the Council’s Acting Chief Executive, Joe O’Neill and other staff members.
In the online newspaper the Santa Monica Lookout, Cllr McKeown is quoted as saying that Galway would be the city’s first English-speaking sister city.
“Although I think you might find Galwegians as difficult to understand as some of the people from Fujinomiya [a Santa Monica sister city in Japan]. The Western Irish [accent] can be kind of thick.”
At the Santa Monica City Council meeting this month, the members voted to “authorise the City Manager and staff, working with the Santa Monica Sister Cities Association to begin negotiations with the City of Galway for educational, cultural, and other exchanges under our Sister City program”.
He said there are many similarities between the two cities – including being located beside bays which share their respective names, and art and technology are also major features.
He added that Galway has a walkway similar to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
A formal request to become a sister city has not been received by Galway City Council.
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, which has a population of around 92,000.
Galway is twinned with or has full sister city status with eight cities: St Louis, Missouri (since 1977); Lorient in France (1975); Seattle, Washington (1986); Bradford, England (1986); Cambridge, Massachusetts (1994); Chicago, Illinois (1997); Aalborg, Denmark (1997) and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2001).
Galway also has formal ‘Friendship Agreements’ with Qingdao, China (1999); Auckland, New Zealand (2002); Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada (2002); Stirling, Scotland (2012) and Menlo Park, California (2013).