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Puerto Vallarta Mayor to Hihgland Park Mayor
 In the early morning on Saturday, the sister cities foundation of Highland Park hosted a breakfast for Mayor Bravo at Once Upon a Bagel. There were 30 people in attendance including the Mayor of Highland Park, Mike Belsky, and several city council members. After the breakfast, there was a dedication of "Sister Cities Park" which is the small park in downtown Highland Park where the Octavio Gonzalez sculpture is located. There was local press at the dedication. After the dedication there was a reception at City Hall where the Mayor toured the building and Mayor Belsky's office. The key to the city was given to Mayor Bravo. After the reception at City Hall, Mayor Bravo toured the library and saw the Huichol deer given to Highland Park by the people of Puerto Vallarta. We then went to the High School where Mayor Bravo saw the mural painted by Javier Nino and the students of Highland Park High School. After that we toured the police station, fire station, country club, recreation center and the golf course, all owned and operated by the City of Highland Park. The Mayor then went to the lakefront to see Lake Michigan and also toured the water filtration plant and the water park owned by the Park District. The Mayor also saw the many parks in Highland Park. We then went to lunch at Cafe Central which is owned by Carlos Nieto. Carlos operates the five star restaurant called "Carlos" located in Highland Park. "Carlos" was voted one of the five best restaurants in the United States and was featured in USA Today in 2007.
 On Saturday night, Mayor Bravo was the guest at a gourmet dinner at Ravinia which was attended by 40 people including Mayor Belsky and Welz Kaufman, the director of Ravinia. After dinner, Mayor Bravo went backstage to meet Los Tigres del Norte and along with Mayor Belsky and counsel general, Ambassador Manuel Rodriguez, he introduced Los Tigres to the 15,000 fans at Ravinia. The Mayor watched the concert where people were dancing in the aisles and on the lawn at Ravinia. It was a very festive evening and a very full day.
The Mayor stayed with our former mayor, Dan Pierce and his wife Rhoda, at their home. On Sunday morning, the Pierces and Mayor Bravo walked to Northmoor Country Club where Mayor Pierce is a member. The employees at the country club recognized Mayor Bravo from the Ravinia Los Tigres concert and he was treated like a celebrity. Everyone wanted to talk to him.
All in all Mayor Bravo learned a lot about how our city operates and he was most interested in learning more about our emergency response system, including our fire department and the police department. It is hard to believe that all this took place in just one day. I think that Mayor Bravo was given the chance to rest during the day for about one hour before the concert.
The government to government exchange which began with the visit of our Mayor, police chief, fire chief, city council member and public works director to Puerto Vallarta in May was a success and both governments learned much from each other. We are looking forward to future visits by the representatives of our sister city and all residents of Puerto Vallarta are welcome in Highland Park. Email to a friend
Rick Wolfe
E-mail: rickandcarol@hotmail.com
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