Durham leaders defend overseas visits

DURHAM -- It cost taxpayers more than $13,000 to send Mayor Bill Bell to Tanzania and council member Mike Woodard to Japan this summer.

The trips were to two of Durham's four "sister cities" and were just two of the dozens taken by city officials in the past two decades.

Woodard spent three days meeting with officials in Toyama, Japan, and learning about the city's light rail system, economic development projects and land-use planning.

Bell met with city leaders in Arusha, Tanzania; toured neighborhoods and schools; and took a trip to several national parks. He left July 24 and returned Thursday.

The city budgets $10,000 a year for such trips and for accommodations when sister-city officials visit Durham, as some Toyama dignitaries did last year.

Former Planning Director Frank Duke visited Toyama in 2006.

The city foots the bill for travel costs and adds $104 per diem while traveling. The host city provides lodging and other accommodations.

The trips have been criticized frequently over the years as perks for council members with no real value for Durham residents.

In a poll conducted in 1998, many voters cited the trips as one reason they supported a ballot measure reducing the City Council's size from 13 to seven.

Trisha Gensic, assistant director of Durham's Office of Workforce and Economic Development, who helps coordinate the trips, said the value is often intangible.

"This is a way of trying to promote peace throughout the world," she said. "And it brings the international into the community."

Woodard said he brought back a briefcase full of material that might have concrete applications in Durham.

Toyama mirrors Durham in many ways, Woodard said. It started as an industrial city and has recently shifted to a knowledge-based economy, abounding with pharmaceutical and software companies.

Durham calls itself the "City of Medicine"; Toyoma says it's the "City of Medicines."

Toyama has worked to attract retail businesses downtown, provide public transportation and accommodate a growing population without sprawl -- all goals shared by Durham.

"I learned a ton of stuff, and a lot of it is applicable to Durham," Woodard said. His wife accompanied him on the trip in early July, but she paid her own way.

Bell said he returned with a profound sense of how much worse living conditions are in Tanzania, an eastern African nation, than in Durham.

Bell said he's going to explore ways for Durham to help Arusha obtain a road grader.

"I talk about resurfacing roads here in Durham," Bell said. "You go there, you have an appreciation for the condition our roads are in. Theirs are the pits. Really."