January 1, 2025 (Holiday)
New Year's Greetings from Mayor Yasuhiro Sasaki of Hokuryu Town
Message
Happy New Year! I hope that you are all in good health and well as we welcome the New Year of Reiwa 7.
Looking back at last year, 246,000 tourists from Japan and abroad visited the 38th Sunflower Festival. Although the number of visitors is still not as high as it was before the COVID-19 outbreak, I feel that the fields of sunflowers bloomed like big "flowers" in the hearts of the people who visited our small town. It is thanks to the cooperation of everyone involved that we were able to promote Sunflower Village in such a big way.
This year too, we hope to see the "flowers" of Kitaryū Town bloom, and we will continue to promote industry, encourage relocation and settlement, and build a town that will connect with the future.
It was a good harvest season for agriculture, a key industry. We hope that agriculture will make a strong comeback with rice prices that take production costs into account, and that it will continue to develop into a hopeful industry in the future, playing a part in creating a sustainable local community.
Last year, we established a town development project town council to connect the town to the future. We will draw up a vision for Hokuryu town that can be predicted for the next 10, 20 years and beyond, while listening to the opinions of the townspeople, and working on this as a policy. We are digging into what is important to Hokuryu, what its strengths are, and what its problems are. From there, we will think about what needs to be done and create a "plan," gather numbers that will serve as the basis for what can be done now to create long-term and short-term strategies, and select what can be tolerated and what is necessary to create creative policies.
At the time of the Great Heisei Amalgamation in 2010, there were 2,602 towns and villages, but now there are only 926. It may be that our precious hometowns have changed shape. I believe that Hokuryu Town's mission is to support the hometowns that are in everyone's hearts, to help people live a stable life, and to do things that larger municipalities cannot do.
We will continue to promote the creation of a "small but shining town," "a hometown in the heart," and "a town that connects to the future."
"The best thing about this town is the good people," is something that is often said by people who are not originally from Hokuryu but have decided to live here.
There are a mountain of administrative issues to deal with. Public transportation issues, updating aging facilities, policies for the elderly, support for child rearing, community-based school development, agricultural promotion, measures against harmful birds and animals, revitalization of commerce and the sunflower village, improving the appeal of Hokuryu Onsen, and more. However, if we can overcome these, they will turn into opportunities. Standing in the wind, calmly accepting and overcoming even the headwinds. Eventually the wind will stop and the sun will shine.
The policies of Hokuryu will influence national policies.
The "townspeople" will charm "those connected to the town." We will think together with you about what makes "Hokuryu" unique.
I would like to conclude my New Year's greetings by praying that the new year will be a bright and happy one for everyone.
＜Excerpt from "Hokuryu Public Relations" January 2025 issue, No. 713＞
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Friday, November 1, 2024 To everyone! We would like to talk to you. We will use your voice in town development! Please feel free to stop by the mayor's office.
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