LOCKPORT – Almost a decade ago, Patti Pastore had an idea to merge two cities more than 4,000 miles apart.

Not literally, though. Pastore, a Lockport resident who retired from a Naperville engineering company, was having lunch with relatives in Asiago, Italy.

She noticed many familiar names from Lockport in Asiago, such as Caneva. Many residents from Lockport have family ties to Asiago, she said.

That’s when one idea to bridge the two cities occurred to her.

“Gee, wouldn’t it be great if we became sister cities?” she said.

A sister city is a long-term, cooperative relationship between two cities in different countries, according to Sister Cities International, a nonprofit membership organization for sister cities, counties and states. Through the relationship, the cities can have cultural, educational, business and technical exchanges, according to the website.

Pastore said she kept thinking about forging this sister city relationship for a while until she finally approached the mayor, who invited her to speak about it at a November Lockport City Council meeting.

In February, city officials announced Asiago city officials approved of being sister cities with Lockport. All that’s left is to fill out paperwork with Sister Cities International.

Lockport Mayor Steven Streit said city officials were excited to become sister cities with Asiago. The prospects for cultural exchange, student exchange programs and business is exciting, he said.

“Just having people from Asiago coming to Lockport and visit will strengthen that connection,” he said.

According to Sister Cities International, sister cities are formed when the highest elected officials from two communities sign a memorandum establishing a sister city partnership. Thousands of inbound, outbound and virtual exchanges take place each year, according to their site.

“There’s a lot of things we could share culturally in addition to student exchanges,” Pastore said.

Coincidentally, Lockport is a lot like Asiago, she said. The weather is similar because the city is not close to the Mediterranean Sea. Although the weather was a bit warmer Thursday at roughly 46 degrees, she said.

“It was like you had been their next door neighbor forever,” she said about the people of Asiago. “It was a wonderful feeling.”