Eleven years after the City of Bowling Green’s sister city agreement ended, some in the city are open to exploring the idea again.

The idea was floated among city officials last week in their annual special work session and strategic planning meeting. While no action was taken, Mayor Todd Alcott said he would like city government to take another look at the program.

“I’m just trying to see if it’s worth rekindling,” Alcott said in the meeting. “I don’t know if I’m 100% (in favor), but I’d like to look at that.”

Bowling Green previously had an agreement with Kawanishi, a city in Japan located around 13 miles north of Osaka, Japan’s third largest city.

The agreement was established in October 1992 after city representatives from Kawanishi made visits to Bowling Green to establish “greater mutual understanding” between the two cities. The agreement was renewed in 2006.

One result from the agreement was the exchange of students between Bowling Green High School and schools in Kawanishi.

The relationship was dissolved following FY2014 and no funds were budgeted afterward. This move required no action by the city commission.

Alcott said in the meeting that if a restarted agreement was created, he would like most to see economic development come out of it. Speaking with the Daily News on Monday, Alcott compared sister cities to the introduction of Toyota into Georgetown.

“That’s where it kind of began,” Alcott said. “Those sister cities were developing, and we have some Japanese companies that are part of Kentucky because of that.”

Alcott said he is interested in ideas that would be a “win-win” for the city, even ideas that aren’t necessarily sister cities.

“We’re a growing community, and we have a lot of international companies that are already part of our community,” he said. “We’re an international community.”

City commissioner Melinda Hill feels differently about renewing a sister city agreement, saying she is not in favor of a renewal since, in her view, the city wasn’t getting enough “bang for our buck.”

“We, as the city of Bowling Green, were not receiving any benefits from this program,” Hill said. “I just do not believe in spending any money unnecessarily.”

Hill began her tenure on the commission in 2011, just a few years before the city stopped funding the agreement. The original goal of the program was to send local leaders from Bowling Green to Kawanishi and vice-versa to learn about the two communities.

This wound up not being the case. Officials from Bowling Green stopped going to Kawanishi, but leaders from there kept coming here, Hill said.

“They explained when their delegation comes here, we pay for everything,” Hill said. “And that’s just hard for me to swallow.”

Sister Cities International is a nonprofit organization that promotes the creation of these agreements. It was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. For a city with Bowling Green’s population, SCI charges $810 for a one-year membership.

Hill said to gain her support, the program would have to produce something that is not currently accessible. This, she said, would not be an economic investment, since this is what the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce does.

“Why do we want to pay for another program for economic development when they do an excellent job,” Hill said.