Re “The Fragrant Fumes of Sister City’s 50th Birthday Party”
[img]1371|exact|Steve Rose||no_popup[/img]
I read with interest your interview with Barbara Honig on how the Culver City Sister City Committee now is more community-based and about the changes it has undergone in the last couple of years.
It left the impression that there have been tremendous changes and that they self-instituted.
I compliment Sister City for grabbing change and doing the best with it.
From a historical point of view, I believe the Sister City Committee was a committee of the city for about 45 years.
It seems to me that after former Chief Administrative Officer Dale Jones retired in the early ‘90s and his successor, Jody Hall Esser, retired in the late ‘90s, no one in the city understood or knew what they were doing about Sister City. Dale and Jody were very hands-on.
Those days were a lot less complicated than these times are, legally and socially.
Those were good days for the Sister City Committee, too.
I was super involved with them. In 1970, I made my first Sister City trip, to Kaizuka, Japan. They were having a World’s Fair in Osaka, and Kaizuka is a suburb.
We enjoyed many visits from members of the Kaizuka community. I was involved in hosting landscapers from Kaizuka, who were known as The Gardeners. They installed the garden in front of what is now the Julian Dixon Library.
I hosted many other people, and I have fond memories of nights at the Playboy Club on Sunset Boulevard and in Century City.
Special Treatment
A typical Sister City Committee on a trip would include five or six of us, and in Kaizuka, we were taken to so many different shrines. What I remember most is that we always were treated as special guests, especially the trip we took when we gave them a statue to show our appreciation for the garden they had built for us.
One reason I joined Sister City was because in those days I was involved with the Jaycees. I had the status of a Jaycee International Senator. I just naturally became involved with Sister City.
I was a member of Sister City for about 20 years, from the early 1970s until the mid-1990s.
I no longer am a member because personal changes just happen in life.
Directions change. Organizations change.
I would definitely encourage people to join Sister City today.
Mr. Rose, a two-term former City Councilman, is President/CEO of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce. He may be contacted at ssssteve.rose@gmail.com
