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| Day
3 — Wednesday October 8, 2003
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| General
Assembly of the League of Historical Cities |
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Yorikane
Masumoto, Mayor of Kyoto and Chairperson of the League,
declared the Assembly open. After examining the financial statements,
the 2002 activities report and the budget forecast for the current
financial period, League members agreed on the choice of location
for the next Assembly in 2005: Gyeongju, South Korea. They also
took the opportunity to warmly congratulate the representatives
of Kazan, Tatarstan, which will hold its millennial celebrations
in 2005.
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| Helen Fotopulos
then thanked the various partners for the way they encouraged the
establishment of such traditions of cooperation and exchange, and
officially presented the text of the Montréal Declaration,
as modified during the meeting of the members of the Board on Tuesday
October 7. The Montréal Declaration was then unanimously
adopted. Mr. Yorikane Masumoto announced that the
signing of the Declaration would take place later the same day at
2 p.m., during the Conference closing ceremonies.
The Assembly concluded with a short presentation by the Mayor of
Gyeongju, Sang Seung Baek.
http://www.gyeongju.gyeongbuk.kr/en/default.asp
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| The closing ceremonies of the 8th
World Conference of Historical Cities began with a summary report
of the morning workshop sessions. The message delivered by Axumite
Gebre-Egziabher, Director of the New York City office of
UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme), regarding
the responsibility that all must take for the preservation, among
other types of heritage, of the planet’s water resources was
echoed by the participants, who warmly applauded her remarks.
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Invited to the podium
by Helen Fotopulos, Member of the City of Montréal
Executive Committee Responsible for Culture and Heritage, Gérald
Tremblay, Mayor of Montréal, said: “Citizens’
involvement and elected officials’ initiative are two sides
of the same coin. Both groups have responsibilities vis-à-vis
their heritage, and both must develop a new dynamic in which to
exercise those responsibilities. Both groups have a wide array of
tools available for gauging public opinion. |
“In Montréal, we have created
institutions for democratic participation such as the Conseil du
Patrimoine, the borough councils, City Council commissions, the
Office de consultation publique and the Conseil intercultural —
in a city in which 50% of the population represents ethnocultural
communities, the latter exists to showcase the immense heritage
that comes to us from elsewhere. But at the end of the day, it is
the elected officials who make the lasting decisions. They are responsible,
and accountable.
“Each of our cities has its own personality,
its own ways of doing things. Citizen involvement may proceed along
different avenues from city to city, but those avenues are not necessarily
contradictory. That is why we much exchange and compare ideas, listen,
and learn from one another,” Mr. Tremblay concluded.
He then invited everyone to take advantage of the superb late-afternoon
weather to explore the streets of Old Montréal one last time
before making their way back home.
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Ms. Fotopulos presented the Montréal
Declaration to the Assembly, and invited Chairperson
Yorikane Masumoto, Mayor Tremblay and his colleagues,
and the representatives of the League’s member cities to sign
the Declaration. |
| Next, Ms. Fotopulos
presented her closing remarks,
summarizing the work accomplished at the Conference, and thanking
the participants for their contributions to this important event.
“I would like to thank everyone who has played a part
in this wonderful meeting, which has been so important in nurturing
discussions on our shared responsibility vis-à-vis history
— both that which has passed, and that which is still in the
making. For our goal here has truly been to ‘make history,’
by weaving our actions into the historical narrative of our shared
urban existence,” she said. |
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Lastly, Chairperson
Yorikane Masumoto concluded the 8th World Conference
of Historical Cities, mentioning the magnificent job accomplished
by Mayor Tremblay, Ms. Fotopulos, and Gilles Morel, Coordinator
of the Conference, as well as “the many Montréal-based
experts and citizens who nurtured our discussions through their
active participation in our work. Thanks to you, we the mayors have
learned a great deal from this conference. I believe that the League’s
stature is elevated by conferences like this one, and we can all
be justly proud of our success. The next step is to develop our
parallel activities, by multiplying exchanges outside the meetings
we hold every two years. That is the new direction in which I invite
you all to steer your efforts between now and our next rendezvous
in Gyeongju, in 2005.”
Chairperson Masumoto then invited everyone to attend the Gyeongju
conference in large numbers, and declared the 8th World Conference
of Historical Cities-Montréal 2003 officially closed.
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