There were a couple of interesting exchanges last night at city council concerning travel. Council President Smith took Police Chief Rusty York to task over a recent trip of three officers and a mayoral aide to Gera, Germany, our sister city. Later, John Urbahns, director of the city’s planning departments, was asked why his travel budget showed an increase. Travel. Junkets? Useful?

Hmmm.

I have some history in this discussion. I started Fort Wayne’s sister city relationship with Gera, Germany, on my own dime. A decade before, just after I started Germanfest in 1981, I felt that it would be good to have friends in Europe, especially Germany, and began looking for a sister city for Fort Wayne in the Vaterland. Travel can be expensive. So, I sought to set up a program that would involve home-stays, so that you, a citizen, or Rusty York, a police chief, could trade room, board, and transportation and, thus, save thousands on a European vacation. The only major cost would be the trans-Atlantic fare.

So, fundamental to the idea was to get elected officials out of their cubicles and into discussions with their peers in another culture, people who were facing many of the same problems in a different culture. The more we learn for the experiences of others then less “reinventing of the wheel” we have to do on our own.

So, a month ago three officers paid their own airfares and spent ten days in Europe, mostly in Gera, our sister city. I spoke with Dottie Davis, a high ranking police officer who participated in the exchange and her eyes gleamed while describing the visit. The officers spent days with their German counterparts learning how German police approach their problems of crime and departmental management. Of course, Dottie and her fellow officers offered their insights. Officers from Gera can be expected to be here this summer to continue the dialog in an ongoing relationship that is now two decades old.

I am a strong proponent of travel. I have been to almost every country in Europe and spent last May in Moscow and last October in Istanbul. You learn a lot when you travel, not just about paintings, but also about ways that cities are organized. So, in the hopes that our city planners, the John Urbahns of the city, would be able to visit Munich, Berlin, Nurnberg and a hundred other central European cities and see how remarkably well those cities are managed, I started the exchange program with Gera, a city which itself was decaying under the communists (it was in East Germany) and now gleams with new buildings, restoration, excellent public transit, pedestrian zones, great shopping and splendid bierstuben. Our planners could learn much about urban planning, about finance, about amenities from the resurrection of Gera.

We have a lot to learn from travel. The city and council are short sighted if they end employee and official travel. It is a very cheap way to learn how to improve Fort Wayne. In fact, the members of city council should all make the rounds in Gera, and Plock and Takaoka. Eye opening moments await them.

Now, I understand President Smith’s concerns. No one in the administration took the time to inform council of the trip. President Smith heard about it from a testy constituent and was caught unaware, surprised, could not explain. Had the administration taken that simple step, a courtesy, the matter would not have become an issue and the question of travel would not have been discussed last night.

Travel is good for our city.

Editor’s note. Here’s the German version of the song this post was titled after.

And the English version.

If you find this article informative? Consider donating any amount you choose.

Related posts:

1. My Kingdom for a Camera Blow for blow, topic for topic, insult...
2. Government is the problem Well, that is what Mitch Harper said...
3. A night of good cheer It was almost a jolly city council...

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 9:10 am and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.