Group pushes
to save Japanese
Cultural Center

It urges members to rejects
the center's move to sell the site

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By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

Prominent Japanese community leaders are urging other members of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii to reject the decision by the center's board of directors to sell the organization's Moiliili building to pay off the organization's debts.

"We believe that the cultural center should be preserved if at all possible, and be sold only as a last resort," said Fujio Matsuda, a spokesman for the Committee to Save the Center, at a news conference yesterday.

Matsuda said the board owes members and countless donors, locally and abroad, an explanation of why the sale is necessary. He said members have not received sufficient information "to make such a drastic, irrevocable decision."

Cultural center president Susan Kodani said the proposed sale of the building for $11 million will allow the center to pay off $9 million of debt by a Dec. 31 deadline and have some money to continue the center's mission.

She called the Committee to Save the Center's efforts a "healthy reaction," but "last minute," saying the center's dire financial straits were no secret, although the membership was never formally told.

The committee, including three former board chairmen, urged the 1,935 members of the cultural center to vote no or give the committee their proxies so they can vote no in at a meeting scheduled to ratify the board's decision set for 10 a.m. Friday.

The center's two buildings house a museum with a collection of historic artifacts of Japanese immigrants, a tea ceremony room, a martial arts dojo, a banquet hall and commercial office space.

Kodani said even if the building is sold, "we are not going to lose the center; the center will go on and the center will have programming," Kodani said.

The details of the transaction have not been worked out, she said, but there probably will be a transition period so the center can look for a new location, and the sale doesn't necessarily mean the center can't stay in the building.

The committee doesn't have a financial plan but hopes support from the Japanese community will help save the center, which aims to preserve the history and culture of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii.

"So much of the community's heart and soul is in this (center)," Matsuda said. He believes the sale would leave in question access to facilities and put programs in jeopardy.

Yoshiharu Satoh, a former cultural center board chairman and chairman emeritus of Central Pacific Bank, said the board owes members an explanation of the details of the proposed sale, including who the buyer is, to make an informed decision.

Hoyt Zia, executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, one of the center's original tenants since 1994, said he was informed two weeks ago his company would have to vacate its space.

The company had invested $150,000 in renovation costs in 2000, and expected to stay for the next 10 years.

"We feel very much a part of the Japanese Cultural Center," he said.