Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Robert Mizukami Interview
Narrator: Robert Mizukami
Interviewer: Ronald Magden
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: April 11, 2000
Densho ID: denshovh-mrobert-01-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

REM: What was it like, Bob, being the mayor of Fife?

RTM: Well, I think that, like I mentioned earlier, Joe Vraves was a very good mentor for me. I mean, he was quite a businessman. And so the thing about Fife, we're changing from agricultural to industrial type of a city. Fife, for its size, is very well, very well off financially as far as cities go. So we were always considered donor city as far as participating in, in sharing of, of sales tax and so on. So when I used to go to the Association of Washington Cities conferences every year, and be on the panel and talk about small cities, they always said, "Well, Bob, Fife is not a small city as far as finances are concerned." So everyone was quite envious of our position.

And during my tenure there in office, we did a lot of building as far as industry is concerned there. They accused me of paving the valley with blacktop and warehouses and such. But because of that, Fife has a very high tax value there. Financially we've been very well off during that period of time. We were able to do things that small cities our size would never have been able to tackle. I keep wondering about little cities in eastern Washington like Omak and things like that. What do they do to maintain their, their revenues there to be able to support their government? I think because of the expansion during my tenure there, that I feel that I left the city in pretty good stand there. And I'm very proud of that.

REM: You were mayor from 1980 to '87?

RTM: (Yes). Seven years.

REM: Was there much re-zoning, that kind of thing, or were there people who wanted to see Fife stay agricultural versus another group who wanted to see it industrialized? Were these two forces there in the community or was it pretty well all for industrialization?

RTM: Well, I think there's, a lot of people wanted to maintain the agricultural climate there that we've always enjoyed. And so there's some resentment about too much industry coming into Fife. What industry brings, 'course, is traffic and that's the main thing that everybody's, opposes is all that extra traffic that comes through there. And now that the extension of 167 through, from Puyallup through to the Port of Tacoma is now on the drawing boards, and that's going to also eliminate quite a few of the farms that are there yet. And people kind of resent that. But I don't know if that's a sign of progress or what, but anyway, that's inevitable, I think.

REM: We've talked about, in the beginning there were 177 Japanese American farms in the valley before World War II, and that there were three dozen that came back after the war. What would you estimate, as the year 2000 rolls around, how many Japanese American families, farming families, are still in the valley?

RTM: I think you could almost count 'em on one hand, pretty near.

REM: Half a dozen.

RTM: I would say, yeah.

REM: A way of life is passing from the scene, then, the Nisei way of life? Is this...

RTM: Pretty much, yeah.

REM: ...sort of symbolic that...?

RTM: Well, because the farmers that are left now are all Sanseis, and they will continue to farm as long as it's viable. So I don't know how much longer farming is going to be viable in that area. The property values there in Fife are so high that the taxes you pay on the farm land makes it almost impossible to continue farming that ground.

REM: While you were mayor, you were involved with the Puget Sound Council of Government and the Good Roads Association, a lot of things. Can you explain how, as mayor, you participated in these groups that had, would have an effect on your community?

RTM: Well, I always felt that it's best to be on the inside on these kinds of groups because they would affect us directly. The Puget Sound Council of Governments, as you recall, is an organization that passes on (a), ninety-five reviews that kind of control the grants that, federal grants that came in our direction. And in order for us to get our share of it, I felt, well, that I should be participating in that level so that we would make sure that we got our share of what was supposed to be coming our direction. The Pierce County Good Roads Committee, I was chairing that for a while. And that also was a group that was responsible for where the grant monies should be going, what community and what areas, so that helped us in that.

REM: You would negotiate within these groups for Fife's share? That was approximately what was happening with Puget Sound Council of Government or any of these metropolitan groups that were involved?

RTM: Well, normally the small cities don't have very much voice in some of these kinds of decision-making organizations, and so my idea at that time was to be involved directly, to be heard on, in the different decisions.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.