Voorburg and Temecula celebrate decade-old ties

Tenth anniversary of sister city agreement

TEMECULA, California - Sister City ties between this community in Riverside County and the Dutch municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg recently reached age ten. Celebrations included a photo contest in both countries.

The official twinning of the southern California city of 75,000 and the Zuid-Holland community of the same size started in 1993 and has flourished in the last five years with a number of official visits by delegations from both countries. The U.S. Temecula Sister City Associa-tion and the Dutch Temecula Work Group since have exchanged views on a number of subjects, while the police and fire departments of both cities have set up ex-change programs.

The Temecula Sister City Association is spearheaded by local resident Ad Creemers, a Dutch American. His wife Elisabet is the city’s liaison with Voorburg, which two years ago merged with neighbouring Leidschendam. Both communities are suburbs of The Hague.

Temecula, which also has a sister city agreement with the town of Nakayama in Japan, each year also organizes an International Market and celebrates a Holland Week.