DETROIT NEWS - June 25, 2002
Troy Poles will host presidents; Poland's leader, Bush plan visit to talk to residents
By Lisa Zagaroli / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- President Bush will visit Michigan next month with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski as part of an official state visit.
Details of the July 18 visit are still being worked out, but the expected trip to Troy, home of the American Polish Cultural Center, will include a forum with local residents. About 11 percent of Troy's population indicated Polish heritage in the 2000 Census, Mayor Matt Pryor said.
Paul Odrobina, president of the Polish American Congress' Michigan division, said the White House still is considering a larger venue at a school in Orchard Lake (NOTE: The Orchard Lake Schools) instead of Troy to accommodate more people.
It would be the second official state visit of a Polish president to the United States. The first was in 1991 by then-President Lech Walesa, shortly after the collapse of communism, said Artur Michalski, press attache for the Polish Embassy in Washington.
Kwasniewski, who was elected to his second term in 2000, hosted the Bushes in Warsaw in June 2001. He'll be in the United States from July 16-19. It will be only the second state visit during Bush's presidency; the first was with Vicente Fox of Mexico.
"Poland has become a friend, partner and NATO ally of the United States and is an ardent supporter in the war on terrorism," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said last week. "President Kwasniewski shares the president's vision of creating a Europe whole, free and at peace."
The embassy's political director, Michal Wyganowski, said Kwasniewski and Bush are likely to continue their dialogue on bilateral cooperation in security and NATO expansion.
"President Kwasniewski is a promoter of the U.S. in central Europe and European and transatlantic institutions such as NATO and the (European Union)," Wyganowski said. "Poland is a close ally and hoping to be a closer ally."
Polish leaders said they'd be pleased to host Kwasniewski and Bush.
"If they are coming, of course we are going to show them our real Polish hospitality," said Stan Grot, president of the cultural center in Troy. "We are proud to show off what we got, what we accomplished. It would be a thrill to have two presidents in our cultural center."
Mayor Gary J. Zych of Hamtramck, which is about 40 percent Polish, said there are "some serious overtures" being made to get Bush to visit there to continue a tradition set by his father and President Clinton.
"He would never slight the Polish population or the residents of Hamtramck I'm sure," Zych said.
This would be Bush's fifth visit to Michigan since being elected.

More about the Orchard Lake Schools, in the news . . .