<Begin Segment 3>

BF: Well, let's move on to talking about specifically some of the organizations you've, you've been a part of. I mean, I was looking at your resume, and everything from, you're, you're still involved with the Federal Reserve, and to smaller local organizations like the JACC, the Japanese American Chamber. What was it like when you were first getting involved with some of these boards? Was -- did you have much experience? Did you know what to expect? Was this something you went into purely for business reasons, or you were curious about what it was like?

TM: Well, one of the -- and I can't tell, I got to do some research on any notes or just historically, but one of the first real politically related type of involvement I was involved with and got involved with was the early '60s, I was still maybe working at Boeing, but helping my father out, or even my father must just maybe passed away. But the Model City program was a huge federal program that took cities like Seattle, and they cut a big district or property. And the property in Seattle that they cut was from almost Lake Washington and pie-shaped all the way down to the waterfront near like foot of Yesler. And our old business in 5th and Main Street was right within that border. And, and couple things happened; one, I, I don't know the sequence, but one is when I -- one morning I got up on Sunday, and they were proposing -- and I don't know, I guess it was the Seattle Engineering Department proposing some kind of, they call it Ring World, different cities have it. They call it the Inner Ring Road and the Outer Ring Road. And the Outer Ring Road was going to be part of I-5, which was built in the viaduct. And they agreed to spin around the city. And the outer -- and then they had a, proposed an Inner Ring Road that was, would come along 5th Avenue, cut down Main Street and go back. And this was ultimately going to be some kind of mass transit. You look at this map and says, "Wow. Our store is right there, and it's going to be demolished." It just comes around.

So I called, I forgot whoever it was, engineering department. And one thing led to another, they says, "Well, what you got to do is go up to Model City because they're going to have the federal funds to do this." So before you know it, you're there, you're going to some meetings, before you know it. They says, "Okay. The International District is really not well-represented. Why don't we give you some money and you go down there and see if you could get the local organization and the local businesspeople and the property owners together." So that was one of my first assignment, I guess, for selfish reasons.

And that turned out to be the International District Improvement Association, Interim. I was the first chair of that. We negotiated for a great sum of about $19,000. And actually we -- one of the first persons we hired as a director was a, is the nephew of Senator Dan Inouye, very interesting guy. I don't know where he went. But he came, we hired him. Oh, I take it back. The first person we hired, was assigned to us, was Reverend Lem Peterson, who was a retired minister. And he's still very active. He must be eighty-five. We still exchange correspondence. But he was assigned to the Model City program. He was then assigned to us. And he helped us set up this organization.

And a side story, we also at that time -- this is kind of a side issue. But at that time, Lem Peterson went to the University of Washington for the Model City program to ask for some help from architectural students. And there was a fifth-year architectural student named Merritt Sakata. He came down and helped us for one summer. And he was engaged to a girl from Seattle, Carol Farnsworth, who -- small world, I kind of knew her parent -- I mean, I didn't know her parents, who was an activist in the community. Anyway, they came down, did some wonderful work for us. And so toward the end of the summer, he, Merritt comes to the, "I think you owe me one." I said, "Yeah, I guess so." He says, "I know three girls from Hawaii coming. They need a job because they're going to the University of Washington. So I hired these three girls sight-unseen, and one of them was Lovett." [Laughs]

BF: Your wife.

TM: Yeah. So to this day we -- in fact, he was here just by coincidence because her mother's not, father had an operation. They were here, so they came to the lunch. But we're still very good friends. And Merritt and Lovett, they went to the junior prom together, something like that.

BF: Oh, really?

TM: Yeah. So, they were neighbors or something. And he went on to some eastern, four-year college. She went to the University of Hawaii. And then she was going to come to go to the University of Washington. So she said, "I had to marry you, you paid me so little." [Laughs] So anyway, that's that the sad -- and the other two ladies, one married, by coincidence, a family friend's son, Victor. They just live two, three, about a mile away. And their daughter's same age as my daughter, Denise. So we've stayed in touch, and it's kind of like family. So the other one, she's around too. But all three --

BF: So you were dating an employee?

TM: Right.

BF: Boy. Nowadays that wouldn't have --

TM: Yeah, I know. Well, I was just trying to do my friend a favor. But anyway that's a side, but anyway, so that was probably one of the first -- but looking back, I think maybe, my activities at the Boy Scouts might have been kind of a first, I don't know how you say, community board membership, leadership-type of situation. Anyway, getting back, Model City program. We set it up, and that became Interim. And then as you know, with the history of Interim, they spun off to a lot of things, within the organization. Then when Interim, after two, three years, it became more, it, concerned with the social, health, welfare, and that kind of activity. And I felt that that's fine for Interim, but we needed a chamber of commerce-type of organization. So I was with people like Mrs. Uno, Shigeko Uno, and a few other businesspeople, Dr. Toda, we started the idea, International District Economic Association. And we ran that for a few years.

BF: More business centered?

TM: Right. Then two, three years ago, I was involved, I co-chaired the effort to create the International District BIA, the Business Improvement Area. And once that was established, we folded the idea. But the Business Improvement Area, BIA's are, as you know, are able to assess property owners and businesspeople. And so there's about $140,000 annual budget. So it's not enough, never enough money, but at least there's an organization that outside forces could relate to and also the, could try to coordinate parking, promotion, and things like that. And our, fortunately, we were set up to, as you know, when Paul Allen's going to build that big football stadium, they set aside some money. And the BIA seems like a logical entity to be able to maybe use some of that money. So that's fortunate to have had that organization.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.