MONTEBELLO PAIRS WITH ARMENIAN CITY
By Nisha Gutierrez, Staff Writer
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
Whittier Daily News, CA
Sept 26 2005
MONTEBELLO — Members of the Armenian community joined Montebello city
officials Sunday as they announced the inauguration of Stepanakert,
as their next sister city.
The Armenian city of Stepanakert , is the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh,
which is home to about 40,000 people.
Serge Samoniantz, committee member for Montebello’s Sister City
Program, said that the need for an Armenian sister city came as a
request from Montebello residents.
“There is a large Armenian presence here,” Samoniantz said. “They
came to us with the idea about four years ago. Since then we chose
the city and came up with a plan.”
The plan, according to city officials, is to embrace cultural exchange.
“It’s for two different worlds of people to get to know each other’s
culture and come together as the world gets smaller,” said Mayor
William Molinari.
The committee will be requesting the City Council to formally vote
on acquiring Stepanakert as a sister city at the Oct. 12 meeting.
However, Samoniantz said he is confident about the vote.
“We didn’t jump the gun by having this inauguration,” he said. “We
are confident the city of Stepanakert will be approved and when it
(is), the work will have already been started.”
The program with Stepanakert will be made up of cultural, educational,
health care and trade exchange so people can be exposed to how things
are done in a different part of the world.
The committee is inviting members of the public to attend the council
meeting to show their support for the program.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower began the U.S. Sister City Program in
1956 as a partnership between different groups of people, created
to promote cultural understanding, increase global cooperation and
enhance economic development.
Montebello’s first sister city, Ashiya, Japan, was established in 1961.