As Mayor Jack Wilson finished making his Power Point presentation - which recommended the tabling of the Suchitoto Sister City resolution - many of the other Council members sat there looking amazed. Finally, Mayor Pro Tem Mary Ann Suttles asked slowly, "By tabling this, what do you feel will be any different than having this next Tuesday on the voting agenda."

Wilson replied, "What I feel is that we've had two organizational meetings so far, and a great effort put forth by Prescott Caborca Sister City organization, to try to get people to join this organization, this has been unsuccessful. I don't see where a third organization will make any difference whatsoever."

Suttles rejoined, "So, the work of people aren't acceptable for a second Sister City?"

"That's not what I said," Wilson stated. "I said I wanted a viable organization. There is no viable Prescott-Suchitoto organization. Show me the members of that organization. You don't have them."

Suttles took another approach, "And, discussing signage, discussing trips - that yourself, Councilman Luzius and I went down to Caborca in November. Caborca signage - anybody have an idea of what the dollar amount is?"

"We have a 32-year-old official relationship with Caborca. So I want to know what your point is," Wilson replied curtly.

"Well, my point is that it looks like we're trying to split this out," Suttles said.

"I'm not trying to split this out," Wilson answered. "I'm not trying to split this out, I'm saying we don't have an official relationship for expending funds for Suchitoto like we did. An informal relationship is not a valid resolution."

Suttles met the issue head on, "You're not in favor of the Sister City. That's been displayed."

Wilson reiterated, "I'm in favor of a viable organization being in place before we establish a relationship. We don't have a viable support organization."

Suttles was not about to give up, as she said, "Because this was done before you came into office, does that make a difference?"

Wilson said, "All you did before I came into office was agree to study this relationship. Any additional questions or comments?"

Councilman Roecker still looked flabbergasted. "I'd like to make a comment. I..." Roecker was stuttering. "Okay, fine, whatever you want to say. The thing I'm concerned about, we have a gentleman who is the Honorary Counsul for the country of El Salvador; he lives in our community, he owns property in the city of Prescott, he's made presentations to this body on two or three different occasions, and whether or not all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed is perhaps problematic, but it is not draconian. It is not the end of the road, and I think that if we want to proceed with this, there is nothing improper about doing that. And just as we saw that it took us four years to get around to finalizing the Caborca thing, it's taken us not quite half that time to do this. So I'm not uncomfortable at all to move forward with this relationship with Suchitoto, and I don't think there's anything improper about it, and I'm ready to go. I think it's time that we move forward with this. It's kind of, uh... I don't want to say embarrassing, but it's kind of a concern that we're even having this discussion. Because if it fails, it fails. It won't fail, but you know, I mean, come on, folks. And the Caborca folks have been very supportive. And I want to extend a thank you to you for the initial support you gave this effort, and I would be hopeful that as we move forward with this sister city, and perhaps other sister cities in the future, that we can continue to cooperate as we move forward with this project."

Wilson asked, "Quick question. Is Mr. Melendez's primary residence in Prescott?"

Roecker replied, "He owns a house in Yavapai Hills, he's got dual citizenship with the country of El Salvador, and the United States of America. And he is a Consul to the President of El Salvador."

Wilson asked again, "Is his primary residence..."

"I don't know. He has one in Fountain Hills and he has one here. So what?" Roecker asked with exasperation.

Wilson answered, "If you're claiming he's a resident in Prescott, I want to establish that he has a primary residence in Prescott. Does he vote in Prescott, for example?"

Roecker replied, "I don't know. I know he's a taxpayer."

Wilson said, "So am I."

Roecker replied once more, "So am I."

Councilman Bob Bell asked to speak, "Well, I had a discussion with one of the gentlemen from the Sister City organization there, and he suggested, which I thought was a great idea, that the Sister City organization was the umbrella, and under that we have Caborca and we have Suchitoto. And as, of course you know, many cities do have more than one sister city. And, so, the organization is really in place. It's in place right now. And if we were to proceed to move ahead on that basis, we don't have any problem with the organization."

Wilson answered, "Lets let the representatives, after we have finished our discussion, from Sister Cities come and..."

Bell responded, "That's a great idea, Mr. Greniger is the man I'm referring to."

And, with that, the public comment began.

The Public Speaks

Bob Greninger

Bob Greninger stood up and came to the microphone. "As have been suggested, the Sister Cities Association of Prescott, the initial Sister City association - we'll call ourselves the Caborca Committee - has been in support of this program since 2006. I will say this, however, nothing has happened. There is no committee, there are no bylaws, there is no structure, there are no officers. We have been doing our best to see that this takes place, but it has not happened. I am attending this meeting tomorrow night, to see if there is any interest. At the first meeting, the organizational meeting, that we held in April of 2007, we had approximately 20 people show up to that meeting. Seventy percent of them were our members. We followed that up in September with another meeting and forty percent of the eight people, nine people, were our members. We have tried to, we have followed up with emails and written correspondence with these people, there is no community support for this. And that's our concern. That the City may be premature moving forward with this organization until such time as they have an official organization in place, that they've elected officers, they have their bylaws in place, and can come to you and present to you what their goals and ambitions are, and at least present a mission statement. To this date, there is nothing like that available. Until such time as that takes place, I would recommend, as the mayor has just said, that you table the matter until there is something viable to vote on."

Wilson asked the other councilmembers, "Questions for Mr. Greninger while he's at the microphone?

Bob Greninger, however, wanted to clarify his position, "I just want to reiterate that the rumors that have been going around for the last year that our association has been opposing this is absolutely not true. Our organization is the one that has done all the work for the Suchitoto iniative. Mr. Melendez does very little. He came to me and said, "I need your help," and we gave it to him, but this will be the third meeting tomorrow that we've attempted to have and develop a relationship and develop support, and it just hasn't materialized. We have approximately 8 or 9 Salvadorans in the quad-cities area. One of them came to the first organizational meeting in 2007. He did not respond and did not come to the second meeting. And there is no indication that he is going to show up tomorrow. So even the Salvadorans that live here, don't seem to have much interest in it. And until such time there is interest generated, having a sister city in name only, doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me."

Wilson nodded, and then asked, "Additional public comment?"

Elizabeth Ruffner

Elizabeth Ruffner was one of the first members of the public to speak in favor of the Suchitoto Sister City Program.

Ed Williams

Next to speak was Ed Williams, current President of the Prescott-Caborca Sister Cities program, "I'm Ed Williams and I'm the President of the Prescott-Caborca Sister Cities' program... While we certainly favor the Sister City's philosophy, while we certainly favor international understanding - I've spent most of my professional life attempting to pursue such a thing - and while we have lent our support through Bob Greninger and some of our other members, there has been no substantial organization come forth. There seems to be no support in the organization at all. It may be that this sort of thing will emerge in the future, if it emerges in the future, but perhaps we ought to take another look at it, but we have nothing before us now. We have no organization, we have no bylaws, we have no officers, we nothing but a vague support, a vague sort of idea that there is something out there. We don't see it. When we see it, we shall be enthusiastic with our support of another sister city program. In my mind it is not at all a question of mere verbiage, it is a question of the substance of an organization, the substance of community support, the substance of something to grapple with in some sort of concrete way. When we have something to grapple with in a concrete way, then perhaps we can make an intelligent position concerning the working of this undertaking."

Suttles asked for permission to ask Williams a question, "Ed, I have a question. With the Sister City of Caborca, what exactly is the exchange between Prescott and Caborca?"

Ed Williams explained, "Well, we maintain a very comprehensive and detailed relationship with them. We formally meet twice a year, once in Caborca and once in Prescott. And then we have several other informal meetings. We were down in April to help our Caborcan friends celebrate a city holiday. There have been a number of personal friendships that have evolved, we are inviting our Caborcan friends to the forthcoming state meeting here, in Prescott, which we shall host, which we have organized, which my friend Bob Greninger and some of our other friends and colleagues in Sister Cities have put together. We have a very warm and very engaged relationship with them, we are helping them with two different orphanages... We help with various types of educational programs. We ourselves have sponsored in the past many intensive English language programs here. We are looking forward to another educational program, we've had students come and travel with us from the tri-cities including Prescott on a couple of occasions, in order to cement this relationship. It is an intimate, successful program perhaps one of the best in the country.

Suttles asked another question, "Ok, and with all that said, with the possible sister city in El Salvador, why couldn't that same thing go on without the point of having that organization to start?"

Ed Williams repeated his concerns, "I think that in order for a successful program to succeed, there has to be some sort of substantial germ, and our problem is that despite the fact that we have attempted to nurture that germ, through the activities of our own organization, and most specifically through the activities of my very able colleague, Bob Greninger, nothing has come forth. The most recent disappointment that we had was when we in Prescott-Caborca sister city program sponsored a display at the Viewery, which is a large display case at the library as you may know, and the Suchitoto people, Mr. Melendez was to share a part of that, and Miss Toni Kaus, the librarian mentioned that he had not come forth. There are still checks that were sent in to the shadow Sister City program of Suchitoto more than a year ago, those checks have never been cashed. There seems to be no organizational ability, no organization that has come forth. So they may come forth, and when they do, hallelujah."

Suttles took another approach, "Let's go back to when Caborca came on board thirty some years ago, you don't believe that some of those issues came up at that time?"

Ed Williams said with a grin, "Well, I was only a whisper of a boy at that time..."

Suttles clarified, "What I'm trying to get at, Ed... this is a really simple thing to me, it's something that the City's trying to do, and I hate to see the split come on with Caborca taking a side. You certainly can have an opinion to it, but to begin to take a side and whittle away at it, I don't think that's what you really need to do. I would think that you want to take it on, and make it better."

Ed Williams said in reply, "Well, but we have, but as a matter of fact, those various efforts were just chronicled. And on several occasions we have attempted to cooperate with Mr. Melendez in attempting to establish some sort of presence. And that presence has never matured. When that presence matures, when we see some sort of community support, then we will enthusiastically embrace our friends from Suchitoto. We haven't seen that yet. Now, I understand that there is a meeting tomorrow, and I know that a couple of you will be there, I wish you every success. If you come back to this body within a month or so and present a more formidable organization, or plan, then maybe you folks will wish to reconsider tabling it, or taking it off the table. So, we are waiting expectantly and hopefully. Not especially confidently."

Rowle Simmons

Rowle Simmons, stood up to speak, not only as one of the delegates to El Salvador, but as the former Mayor of Prescott. He was quite visibly upset. "I don't think there's a single citizen or person in the City of Prescott that would question what the intention was. We can play games, Mr. Luzius, with what is the meaning of is, when we're talking about studies and everything else. This is the first I've heard about the study part of that, because I can tell you, from being on the council, that the only fault that's in hand here is one in which this is the first time that any of us had ever endeavored to get into something like this."

Simmons continued forcefully, "The spirit and the entire enthusiasm on Council and the community concerning this project... You know, we're not just dealing with..." he stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts, "I think we also need to define one reason why the excitement was high for El Salvador. They are our only ally, our only one in South America. And when we met with the President in El Salvadore - we went down there in good faith, and I can guarantee you there's not one of us that went down there with the idea that we're going to study anything. And the word study got by me at that time, because my memory would be more along the line of us going down to pursue, not to study, but to pursue the relationship. The only reason we didn't have a city picked out at the time was because there were two cities, Suchitoto and one other city, that were in the mix as possibly being a good fit. And that had not been decided at the time of us voting in July."

"The upsetting thing to me is, that we go down there," Simmons said, "We have the blessing of the council and we go down there, and now we've got some nitpicking over the terminology and this stuff is being put up here as the spending of the $900 for the sign. You know, it amazes me... We went down there in good faith, we met with the full council and mayor of Suchitoto, we met with their community, we had formal meetings down there, we exchanged a great deal of comraderie, you name it, and it was phenomenal. And we were able to come back with the idea that this was a good fit. Now, did we not dot all the i's? Correct. Did we not cross all the t's? That is correct, we didn't. And a lot of that is because this is the first time we've done this."

Simmons evidently felt the need to defend Mr. Melendez, who was not at the City Council meeting, "Now, the picking on Rick Melendez, yeah, he's ... I will say, that Rick is not always the most organized of guys. Also, I want to remind all of you, that many of you may not know that he had some serious health issues also. So, there were, number one, yes there were mistakes made, number two, there were some balls probably dropped and all this other. But I suggest that the intent of the City Council and the City at that time in July of 2006, should be consummated and you should go ahead and do this. And like Mr. Roecker and Councilwoman Suttles said, if this falls flat on it's face as far as the organization, what harm is done? So, you take back your $983 that you're so worried about, Mr. Mayor."

Simmons then made an extraordinary statement, "And I think it's also an insult that you refuse to meet. Mr. Melendez tried to meet with you formally after you took office. This is a public offense from a standpoint that you refuse to meet with him. He is the Honor of the Counsul for the government of El Salvador, the Honorary Counsul, and he does represent El Salvador and he is the official representative. And I feel that he deserves the respect and the acknowledgement of that position. And I feel that all of the efforts and everything that's been done, we need to overlook some of the mistakes that have been made and push forward with this. As Mary Ann said, what harm is it? Thank you."

Wilson said non-committedly, "Thank you."

Gordon Maddux

Gordon Maddux

Then Maddux went on to describe his relationship with Mr. Melendez and his feelings about El Salvador, "Just a pure happenstance meeting, I got together with Enrique Melendez, we became friendly, and now we have a business relationship. When I first heard of the El Salvador sister city on my end, I got really excited, because first of all, El Salvador is atypical in the Central/South American countries. It's a democracy, they have privatized their banks, their electrical production and distribution, their pensions, their telecommunications, and many other things. They are a really forward Central American country. And you know down there, only 11 percent of their income is taxable against the gross national product, as opposed to here where it's about twenty-five percent and the United Kingdom, about fifty percent. This is a country that we absolutely need to put our arms around. We need to join hands with countries like this, and again, they're the only country in that part of the world that has supported our efforts in Iraq. I don't understand the motivation for wanting to do anything negative toward El Salvador. I can't see where anything but positives can come out of this. I can't see a downside to this. And I encourage you to go ahead with your program. Don't table it, make it happen. I'm going to attend the meeting, I've joined the organization financially, and I'll be an active part of the organization. If you're worried about there not being an organization, I guarantee you, after tomorrow night, there will be. Thank you."

Again Wilson said, "Thank you."

Bill Kendig

Bill Kendig

Kendig had still more questions, "Why were signs erected in advance? And, then, yesterday - what triggered me to come down here - is that my Yavapai Hills Association Home Owner's newsletter came out, and I find out that tomorrow evening there's a meeting with our Homeowner's association that includes the City Manager, Councilmembers and so forth to discuss this. It sounds like something that is a done deal, as far as our newsletter is concerned. So, I end up with a whole series of questions, and it's becoming, at least it was stated, that the organization doesn't exist yet, because I would expect to see something about what's going to be done, who's going to do it, what are they going to do, what are we going to do, what's the funding that's necessary, and all this type of thing, and I don't think it exists. I don't think you have the information you need to establish the relationship... And I support totally the tabling until you do have the information from a management standpoint."

Gordon Maddux

Maddux had one more thing to add. "Mayor, may I make an additional comment that I forgot to make? (Maddux) One of the things that I kind of brushed over, the people in El Salvador, I'm not sure if it's people in Suchitoto, but I know that people in El Salvador, if and when, this becomes our sister city, are prepared to invest tens of millions of dollars in Prescott. As a matter of fact, Mr. Melendez has asked me to assist him in doing that. And he's putting all that in place now. If you want to think about, 'Are we getting anything back from our sister city?' Absolutely."

Steve Blair

Steve Blair, former Councilman, had a few words to say, even as he was shaking his head in disbelief. "I want to thank Bob Greninger and the group for being the representatives there. But I will assure you, 32 years ago, painting signs for Caborca that were laying on the ground, there was no such committee, and no such process in place. Bob, how long have you been doing this now? Nine years. This is the infancy stage of something that's important out there, and I find it rather comical that we're talking about $1000 for signs when we spent $4000 for TVs in the hallway. I was on the council, I believe in Sister Cities. I believe in the Mayor's peace pole that he helped plant, and for us to waste a bunch of time here as adults, talking about what we're going to do and what we're not going to do, as far as I'm concerned that's kind of shameful. There's nothing wrong with what we're doing. There's a process in place, let it evolve. Caborca evolved over 32 years. Here we've been talking about one year, and we're throwing it away. I'm hard pressed to even believe this. So, Bob and Bob, I wish you well on your committee tomorrow."

John Danforth

John Danforth got up to speak after Blair. He too, had obviously had time to think over this issue, and articulate his own concerns, "My name is John Danforth. Like some of the other folks who have spoken, I am uneasy with the proposal that's before the council at this time. I've got a number of reasons, but many of them have been articulated previously. One issue that seems to be a bone of contention is about how we go about determining whether or not it's a good fit. And, frankly, that's the point in respect to which I'm most uneasy. Whether or not we've done our due diligence."

John Danforth

"This quote suggests a far more disciplined approach to the sister city process than I believe we followed," Danforth continued. "I've read about Suchitoto, it sounds like a marvelous town. I'm delighted they warmly welcomed out city leaders. I think that's terrific, and I would hope that we would be as gracious when their city leaders come to Prescott. Nonetheless, I believe we need to have a better support in the community than we have so far, and we need to have a better sense of what our plans are for this organization. Frankly, I don't have a clue how this relates to the Sister City's Association of Prescott, which is a non-profit organization that currrently focuses on Caborca, Mexico. I have no idea how this fits. People have talked about possible organizational structures, but it seems like that would be something that we might try to get nailed down before we proceed. Again, I have no opposition, to this particular city, I'm just wondering why this city? Other than the fact that a gentleman that some folks here, and I'll take their word for it, hold in very high regard came and invited us,and we felt flattered by that and had a nice visit. But, I don't believe we're at a state to move ahead. Finally, the one point that, 'if it fails, so what?' Well, if it fails, my concern is we will have put the folks in Suchitoto through a lot of hoops, and they will have expended efforts and they will have expended resources to make this a success. And if it fails from our side, we've put them out. I don't think it's costless if it fails. And then, I do want to express my appreciation to the current City Council and to past City Councils and to City Staff for the terrific job that they've done in making the sister city relationship with Caborca the success it is today."

Elizabeth Ruffner

Ruffner added a quick follow up comment, "This organization has already filed for a non-profit status. This city and this country depend on this agreement for their good faith relationship, and all you have to do is leave this resolution on this consent agenda and vote favorably on it next week, which I am confident will happen."

Final Comments from Council Members

Roecker spoke up again, offering a glimpse into his trip to El Salvador. "Thank you, I'd like to thank Mayor Simmons for making his comments, because he says things a lot better than I do, so thank you for doing that. When we met with the President of El Salvador, just to relate what happened, it was a delightful meeting we had with the gentleman, we were with him for at least a half an hour, maybe 40 minutes. And he told an interesting story. Somebody mentioned that El Salvador was a democracy, and I asked him what he did before he became President of El Salvador. His term, by the way, he's term limited, at the end of this year, his term will be over... We were talking, and I asked him what did you do before you became President of El Salvador, and he said, 'I owned a couple of radio stations. When I was on the radio, I just hammered the government of El Salvador. They were doing this wrong, and that wrong and everything wrong.' Somebody finally said, 'Why don't you run? And he did and he won and now, he says, my radio stations, the ones I own, are hammering me about how I'm running El Salvador. It was kind of a refreshing comment to hear from a gentleman who is in a relatively new democracy, who's country had a civil war, which ended 12 years ago, and they're moving forward. It's just an opportunity with our community to associate with a small community in this fantastic country, it's only about the size of Massachusetts. So, I would suggest this. I would ask that the good folks that are in the Caborca Sister City organization to take a deep breath, to take a step back, we recognize that we haven't done everything all right in this process; we haven't dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's. We recognize that, but I think it's important that we keep moving forward. I would invite you to come tomorrow, not to be concerned about moving forward, but helping us to move forward with the organization, of making Suchitoto another sister city. And we would be delighted for the folks that are in the Sister City organization to accompany any of us and all of us that may be going down to El Salvador in the future to visit our second Sister City, Suchitoto, and in the long run, after all this stuff is done, we will be very, very happy and proud that we are taking Suchitoto as another one of our sister cities."

Lamerson spoke next, "Thank you, Mayor. You know that earlier today, we recognized the GEM of the community, for all the hard work that he did in saving this community hundreds of thousands of dollars and all that stuff, we all felt pretty warm and fuzzy. But, you know, I moved here about 30 years ago to a community that evolved over a number of years, and people who forged a community that was nice. It evolved because of people who were nice. And I would cede my decisions to the wisdom of people like Elizabeth Ruffner who would sit here in front of this council and say, 'Give this time.' I will help you get to where you need to go. So, I too, say, let the process work and move forward."

Luzius took the time to offer his perspective, "Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say a couple of words. First of all, Mr. Simmons, I don't sit up here an nitpick, I've asked a simple question, 'What is the plan? What is the study?' I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Melendez, I have nothing against the citizens of Suchitoto, have nothing against the citizens of El Salvador. In fact I respect them because they are a democracy and because they have sent troops to Iraq. But, I'm just trying to find out for myself, what are we talking about here, what is the plan? I don't see any purpose in leaving this on the consent agenda, if you can vote for it next week anyway, what is the difference? It makes no difference whether or not it is on or off the consent agenda. I would like to see what comes out of this meeting tomorrow evening. And then let's go from there. But for everyone to stand up here and say, 'Leave it on the consent agenda,' I'm not going to sit by for that. Because there are some that may want to vote against it, and there are some that may want to vote for it that you think may want to vote against it. And as I said, Mr. Melendez and I have spoken many, many times, and I believe that I have a good relationship with Mr. Melendez and his wife and I am looking forward to finding out what this plan is going to be, what the group wants to do, and then I'll be happy to support them. But I'm not going to support anything unless I know where we're going and where we're coming from and what we're going to do."

Roecker said firmly, "We'll report back next week."

Wilson directed Suttles, who sets the agenda for the following week, "Let's leave this off the consent agenda."

"Well, I know that," Suttles replied, "But do you want to vote for tabling it, or are you just ok with pulling it off the consent."

Wilson answered, "Well, we're going to pull it off the consent, and we can modify it next week if we want. But, I am in favor of tabling it for the reasons I stated before. We've had over a year to form that committee, there is no committee as far as I can see. If I'm wrong, tell me. It's not an issue of the relationship, I don't have anything wrong with the relationship, but what I have a problem with is there is no support."

Suttles asked for definite clarification, "Do you want to take a vote on tabling it, or will we simply pull this and we'll talk about it next week?"

Wilson replied, "I'll pull it at this point."

Bob Bell did need to add one more thought, "I'd just like to say one more thing. It's almost a situation of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? You see, if I were coming from El Salvador, and was asked to form an organization, I would want to know that the city I was attempting to cooperate with was receptive to my becoming a sister city before I formed an organization. And we have not been in that position. As it was mentioned, Mr. Melendez has asked to present his credentials to the mayor, and that has been refused. Naturally, they're holding back and a little reluctant to move ahead, and hopefully tomorrow night, we'll get this straightened out and they will. And in this resolution, it says that, 'The City of Prescott wishes to officially develop a Sister City relationship with Suchitoto.' Now, I don't see anything wrong with that resolution."

Wilson asked, "Any further comments? Thank you. We'll move on to Agenda Item F."

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