No.160 Visit to the New and Former Village Mayors of Nozawa Onsen Village

On May 8th, we visited Nozawaonsen Village in Nagano Prefecture, a Friendship City, to express our gratitude to former Mayor Toshio Tomii and to greet the new Mayor Yudai Ueno.

The Birth of the New Mayor

Former Mayor Tomii was elected unopposed for four consecutive terms since his first candidacy in 2009, so this election marked the first vote in 20 years. As a result of the mayoral election held on March 30, newcomer Mr. Ueno was elected. Mr. Tomii retired upon the expiration of his term on March 28, and Mr. Ohno took office on the 31st.

There is a gap from the 28th, when the term expires, to the 30th, the election day. This is due to applying a special provision of the Public Offices Election Act to align the date with the village council member election, which also expires on March 31.

Visit to the New Mayor

On the day, we first visited the Nozawa Onsen Village Office and met with Mayor Ueno.

Mr. Ueno is from Nozawa Onsen Village and has been dedicated to alpine skiing since childhood. He was active as a competitive skier until university. After graduation, he switched to freestyle skiing and competed worldwide in ski cross, which was adopted in the World Cup from the 2002–2003 season. In the 2004–2005 season, he transitioned to halfpipe skiing and became a highly successful athlete both domestically and internationally.

In 2009, she married professional skier Manami Mitsuboshi, who has Olympic experience. After retiring from competition, she opened an outdoor shop specializing in freestyle skiing and cycling in Nozawa Onsen Village.

In 2021, he ran for the village council election and was elected unopposed for one of the eight seats. Then, he challenged the village mayoral election this time, winning the first election battle in 20 years and became the new village mayor.

During the meeting, we congratulated on the recent election and confirmed that we will continue our relationship as Friendship Cities. In particular, we felt that we reached an agreement on the nature and direction of the camp that accepts children from Inagi.

Mr. Ueno, I look forward to working with you from now on!

Visit to Former Mayor

After visiting the Nozawa Onsen Village Office, we visited "Yunoyado Tomiken," managed by Mr. Tomii.

Mr. Tomii served as the village mayor for four terms, totaling 16 years. In Nozawa Onsen Village, where tourism is the main industry, he worked to attract inbound visitors from countries such as Australia, amid a continuous decline in the domestic skiing population. During the peak seasons from 2018 to 2019, it is said that over 400,000 skiers visited the village, which has a population of less than 3,500 people.

However, from the 2019 to 2020 season onward, the number of ski visitors drastically decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this crisis, Mr. Tomii fully utilized his strong connections with private companies, the prefecture, and central government agencies, and worked hard as the de facto sales manager of Nozawa Onsen Village to promote the village's development.

Among Mr. Tomii's numerous achievements, the most remarkable was negotiating directly with the national government despite the prefecture's skeptical evaluation of repayment ability, and investing over 4 billion yen to renew the gondola lift. After 30 years since its construction in 1990, the aging Nagasaka Gondola Lift was replaced with the world's most advanced gondola lift, and by introducing snow machines, snow was secured from the beginning of the season, attracting many winter sports enthusiasts.

During this visit, we expressed our gratitude for the friendship city relationship built so far and requested continued efforts to strengthen the friendship with Nozawaonsen Village in the future.

Mr. Tomii, thank you very much for all your help. We truly appreciate it!