Media Advisory
Mayor Committed to Attending Conference
(Tuesday, July 4/2000)-- Mayor Walter Fitzgerald will be a keynote speaker at the second annual Star-Shaped Citadel Cities conference being held in Palmanova (near Venice), Italy, this week.
Mayor Fitzgerald, along with Mayor Ryuichi Kidoura, of Hakodate, Japan, co-chaired the first such international conference held in 1997. Due to the recent death of Mayor Kidoura, Mayor Fitzgerald was committed to attend this year's conference as co-chair of the original Hakodate conference.
The idea for the Star-Shaped Citadel Cities conference began during the 1995 G-7 Economic Summit in Halifax. Since the Japanese port city of Hakodate also features a star-shaped fortress similar to the Citadel in Halifax, Mayor Kidoura suggested that an international conference of cities with such fortresses be organized.
Delegates from cities in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Russia and Vietnam attended the first conference in Hakodate, which is twinned with the former City of Halifax.
Among the topics for discussion at this year's conference are: historical, culture and military urban planning characteristics of the star-shaped cities; cultural and tourist development of star-shaped cities; and guidelines for a mutual European and international cooperation plan for the development of star-shaped cities.
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John O'Brien
Corporate Communications Officer
(902) 490-6531
