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MN: So you're getting really busy with new accounts and with the Town & Country, so you had to quit your night job, teaching job at East L.A. College, then in 1960 you decided to run for Gardena city treasurer. How did you come about to this decision to run, and what did Frances think about that?

BK: Well, I was involved in quite a few things in Gardena and trying to get involved with the community. I joined the Gardena Valley Lions Club, I joined the chamber of commerce, I became a member of the Dana Weller lodge, Masonic lodge, and I got involved in a lot of activities in Gardena so that people then became familiar because I would get to know them in one organization or another. It turned out that when I joined the Gardena Valley Lions Club, that was one of the largest organizations in Gardena and almost any businessman that was anyone in Gardena was a member. And the Card Club, there were about seven different Card Clubs, their representatives were there. The auto dealers, the Chevy dealer, the Ford dealer, the Bank of America members and other businesses within the Gardena area, they were all members of either the Kiwanis or the Lions Club. I chose the Lions Club. Taul was, opened the doors there for me, and when I joined them they says, "Oh, you're an accountant?" He says, "We need someone to take care of the Lions Club books. We have a hundred and twenty members and they come here monthly and they pay dues and we need a full time person taking care of it." I says, "Well, I'll take care of it. What do you, what's involved?" He says, "We'll pay you a fee of a hundred dollars a month," and for me a hundred dollars was a lot of money (for) that, (...) plus free membership, so I wouldn't have to pay for being a member of the Lions Club, but they paid me a hundred dollars to keep track of the dues. I would take that to the office and give it to the girl and I says, "You take care of this." I'll get the checks and then you credit all these people and keep a running account of what people owe, and so I had access to most of the businessmen who were involved in Gardena, so as they got my notices and got to talk to them, they got to know me, I got to know them, and so my contact with them was very, very personal, and then they got to talk to me and found out that, yeah, I'm Japanese American, but I'll keep track of your records. You pay on time." [Laughs]

We had a good relationship, and so because of that when the opening came up or one of the fellows that was the city treasurer, he was also, had a, Bob Firstman was the (owner and) had a shoe store in town. I don't know if was, what kind of shoes he sold, but he was, anyway, it was one of the name brand shoes he sold. He was city treasurer. He decided to run for (city) council, so when he gave that up, then the office for city treasurer opened up, and since I was in accounting I says what's involved in being city treasurer and talk (to) Firstman (and) he says, "Oh, you don't have to worry. The city staff takes care of most of the investing the money and you have to sign the various things that city requires the city treasurer to sign and you get a salary." I said that sounds good, so I decided to run. Turns out that (running for city treasurer) office I called, most of the people that had any money among the JAs were Issei, Yonemura-san, Fuji-san, they were all nursery men, and I called 'em up to my office and I says, "I want to run for city treasurer, and so when I do..." They said, "Oh, sou desu ka." "Well, in order to run I have to have a campaign and I have to send literature out and it costs a little money. So Mr. Kamiya and Yonemura-san, onegai shimasu." That's the first time they were approached on any kind of money for votes. As it turned out, at that time, I had a budget of about eighteen hundred dollars for my campaign and I didn't really have to spend that much because there was a group in a new section in Gardena, Holly Park, and new couples were moving in there from Los Angeles, and this one lady came and she was a reporter from the Holly Park area. She came to interview me because I was running for city treasurer, and I got to meet her. We went out for coffee and she got excited about my running, and she said, "Well, you have the proper background." She says, "I can see the fellow that now, coming in to run against you is not a CPA. He's only a public accountant." So Sid Lemberger is a public accountant that wanted to run for city treasurer, but he had been in town a long time, so people knew Sid. They knew very little bit about me, but it turns out that she was a reporter for the new tract area, Holly Park. Unbeknownst to me, some of the people that moved into Holly Park were Roosevelt (High School) people from East L.A., the Jewish kids that I knew. They knew about me from Roosevelt, so it turns out that was a hidden asset, and when I asked people to support me... I had a budget of eighteen hundred dollars, and my whole budget was spent on sending penny postcards out. At that time a postcard was only one cent, and so you'd type the addresses and, where you vote, and so the penny postcard was my contact to the public, sent it out to the Japanese Americans, and it was no contest. I won. It turns out between the Holly Park people and the Japanese Americans and the power of those, the one-cent postcard, yeah, we were, we were elected as city treasurer. [Laughs] I didn't stay in as city treasurer for long, though.

MN: Now, why not?

BK: Because then the opportunity to start Merit Savings showed up and they asked me to come down (to Los Angeles, Little Tokyo).

MN: And you became their first president at Merit Savings and Loan.

BK: Right.

MN: Which Taul Watanabe also started.

BK: Yeah.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.