Editors note: The Sister City relationship of Oceanside and Fuji City was founded in 1991. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Sister City relationship, OsideNews will features a series of articles about Fuji, written by the Fuji City Tourism Division and Fuji-Oceanside Friendship Association.
Continued from previous Fuji-Oceanside sister city article.
By Kazuo Yamaguchi
On August 24th, Mayor Konagai and delegates from Fuji have visited Mira Costa College and met with Superintendent Dr. Cooke and her staff who gave us heart-warming welcoming reception. Dr. Taccone, Dean of Career and Technical Education delivered a presentation about their professional services to the Oceanside communities. We have learned that over 14,000 students including Japanese international students are registered at their Community College that offers curriculum’s for various industries.
Dr. Tacoone emphasized the strength in bio-tech departments collaborating with the local genetic technology company, Genetech, as an example of college educational curriculum’s being developed to serve local needs.
Many international professorsfrom around the world reside in Fuji today. Fuji city will be working with the College and Oceanside Board of Education for more educational collaboration between two cities.
In the afternoon, we visited the Oceanside Fire Department and our delegation was warmly welcomed by the department chief , Rick Robinson, and his staff. We were shown their facility equipped with wonderful kitchen and recreation area and he explained the need to make their 24-hour routine comfortable.
Comparing Oceanside’s recent records showing more than twenty thousand dispatches and 80% relating to emergency and rescue. Fuji’s was about a half of that numbers and reported only 45 fire incidents in 2015. These differences surprised us.
When their Fire vehicle was introduced, we have realized that ours are considerably smaller in size due to many narrow roads in our town but are functionally similar.