The Fresno Bee from Fresno, California • 19

The Fresno Bee Thursday September 26 1996 B5 Other Opinions TEP WILLS Woodward Park stands to benefit from restaurant Sign WUWnaonPtittadelphia Dally News Presidential debates must be revamped DAVID BRODER decision to exclude Perot from the debate even more disturbing was its silent acquiescence in President cancellation of the first debate scheduled for this past Wednesday in St Louis The first step to remedy this situation for 2000 lies with Congress The legislation authorizing public financing of the mqjor party conventions should be amended to say that in accepting this subsidy the party takes responsibility for its nominee participating in debates under conditions to be set by the bipartisan commission Inclusion of Independents Second the commission should be reconstituted so that the co-chairmen representing the mqjor parties select a third co-chairman who is politically independent and all their decisions be unanimous Third the guidelines should provide that the first debate each year will be open to any and all minor party candidates who have more than 5 percent support in national polls or have ballot position in all 50 states Mqjor party candidates should be invited but not required to participate in this debate Subsequent debates would be restricted to the major party candidates and any others who after the expoeureof the first debate have received 5 percent in national polls It is time to end the gamesmanship and treat these debates with the seriousness they deserve going to set the record straight about Shinzen Friendship Garden and a restaurant The public has been misled on this issue by a City Council member I want to see the garden die because of his campaign to kill the prqject and I will not have history revised on behalf of his ego A restaurant surrounded by trees should not be the focus of controversy here in Fresno I was the mayor when some citizens in this town formed a committee called the Japanese Garden Steering Committee so it is with solid authority that I offer the history of the Shinzen Garden I was there and I will make it dear what Ralph Woodward and his son Woodward intended In the early 1970s a group of Japanese-Americans headed by Ben Nakamura approached the city with the idea of building a Japanese garden at Woodward Park in remembrance of their cultural heritage In 1972 there was an informal meeting organized by Parks and Recreation Director Howard Holman and attended by Parks Superintendent Sam Setencich private citizens Milo Rowell Woodward Judge Alan Christensen and Nakamura These gentlemen together with a group of apanese-Americans formed the Shinzen Garden Development Committee Let me explain the word It means friendship We had been in a long hard war with Japan We all Buffered but we all worked together The Shinzen Garden was an attempt to heal the wounding that all Americans felt Intent At the meeting OJ Woodward urged that the following program be followed to establish a Japanese garden: 1 A request should be made to the Rotary Playland for a $125000 grant 2 The city should proreed with development 3 Donations of materials and services should be sought from Japanese-American landscape contractors nurserymen and the Japanese-American community 4 Additions to the garden should be Bought from our sister city in Japan Kochi And the issue addressing is what Woodward specifically wanted in an authentic Japanese garden The minutes of that meeting state that OJ Woodward said the Japanese Garden (should) contain three teahouses one of which would serve food one of which would be a gift shop and the third of which might be a garden shop and bonsai The debate over should be over He stated what he wanted for the record the minutes tell us he supported three structures in which there were money transactions: food gifts bonsai The headline in The Bee on Aug 16 says Member Michael Erin Woody says Woodward would never have wanted a restaurant certainly convenient to quote someone dead The dead refute anything I talk to the liv- Ted Wills Is afbrmer mayor of Fresno and was a longtime City Council member ing We can have discussion with the living The will that Council Member Woody refers to prohibit a restaurant meaning that since it prohibit Ralph Woodward intend to prohibit Lew Eaton was one of four I committee members who select- ed the Woodward Park Master Plan consultant Riberra and Sue from the Bey Area and he approved the 1965 master plan which included plans for a restaurant After the master plan was approved by the council the city asked for garden design proposals and Paul Saito was hired to design the Japanese Garden in 1972 Construction began in 1975 and on May 18 1981 we dedicated the Shinzen Garden A large delegation from Kochi attended the opening Actually the Yoshino plan is the same concept as the 1965 master plan for Woodward Park a restaurant in the trees just substituted the Km pond and lake for the Fig Garden Reservoir (never built) Site snd money The history done address geography and economics A tree-hidden Japanese restaurant in a Japanese garden ia not going to impact the bird sanctuary The restaurant site is at the edge of the park on the fringe not Bmack dab in the middle of Woodward Park as Council Member Woody is trying to make us believe The park is 300 acres Shinzen Garden ia about 35 acres The restaurant and parking lot are only a tiny fraction of the total area about two acres The restaurant would have a separate entrance on Shepherd Avenue and Friant Road The restaurant would have security at night It would be open eve-ningB after the garden ia closed to the public The restaurant will generate income for the city A restaurant with the quality Ichiro Yoshino will provide could gross revenue which will generate tax money for the city Not only will Mr Yoshino maintain a garden sadly (tying he mil put on tea ceremonies done by tea masters in the Tea Ceremonial House the teahouse is constructed entirety with materials sent from Japan The public know this but tea masters charge about $300 per ceremony The Shinzen Committee afford to do this and it will be a tremendous draw The garden restaurant is not a new idea just never been implemented from the 1965 master plan What got on that site now is an ugly service yard The garden is there to serve the people not the just a few in our community Mayor council members do the right thing for the people of Fresno The preliminaries to the presidential debates this year have beat a mess The system needs to be fixed before the next election in 2000 Never again should a candidate such as Ross Perot who is as widely known as the mqjor party nominees who qualifies for public financing and who is on the ballot in all 50 states be barred from the forums which are so useful to prospective voters in making up their minds I Bay that as one who applauded the Democrats and Republicans for creating the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates and who has admired the work of the panel and its executive director Janet Brown Incumbents' iductancu Historically the main problem with these debates has been assuring the participation of incumbent presidents especially when they believe they are on their way to victory After Vice President Richard Nixon and Sen John Kennedy demonstrated the potential of such encounters in 1960 under the auspices of the television networks debates disappeared for three straight elections In two of those three elections the reluctance of favored incumbents was a mqjor factor The debates came back in 1976 when President Gerald Ford trailing badly at the time of his convention issued a debate challenge in his acceptance speech to Democrat Jimmy Carter Four years later an embattled Carter returned the favor by agreeing to debate Ronald Reagan and in 1984 Reagan debated Walter Mondale But in all of those years the sponsoring organization the League of Women Voters had difficulty dealing with the demands of White House political operatives eager to impose their own terms on the debates So when the chairmen of the two parties step- ped forward to say they would undertake the responsibility it was welcome news Under the auspices of the bipartisan commission the debates have been as informative as ever Indeed the commission has improved them by steering the format away from press panels and using a single moderator sometimes joined by a panel of citizens Putting the commission in charge automatically biased the system toward the two parties that have dominated our politics The rammianinn charter explicitly recognizes the legitimacy and importance of the two-party Bystem and the co-chairmen Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf are there as former chairmen of the Democratic and Republican national committees The two-party system has served this country well and is worth protecting but only up to the point that it does not conflict with other values important to the electorate In an era when increasing numbers of voters are discarding old party lpy alties significant independent candidates have a claim on participation in the debates This year the commission overreached in protecting the rruyor-party nominees while failing to keep incumbent presidents from unilaterally dictating the rules of the game As questionable as was the David Broder is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group (1150 15th St NW Washington DC 200710) His column appears Thursday Mona column will return By Garry Trudeau D00NESBURY OURWORSTENEMf AT THIS POINT 19 COMPLACBNCttt WONTWURAJBIT W0RS6OINGTO KSSPTHS FOCUS ONTWsaeam UNDERSTAND? I WANT YOU ALL AT fuluntenstiy! NOWW0REHtT' HOWABOUT TIN6 CALIFORNIA I COVER THS WEEK Hits IOWA AND IAFVS60IN6 NEW HAW-TO TEXAS SHIRE FOR youf IR? I 001 foTSJ rll Dole lacks support because ignoring issues vital to them I i i I- CLARENCE PAGE at various times and places I can appreciate the reluctance of vulnerable groups to jump up and cheer those who complain about No one knows better than we do after centuries of legal slavery and segregation that better to have the government on your side than against you Instead of constantly rehashing questions about earlier flip-flops land daala extramarital peccadilloes or whether he or not they might save their breath Voters who see themselves as economically and politically vulnerable are likely to care less about private character than his public conduct which latety has stood firmly as a protector of popular programs Bob Dote should listen to the ladies Women vote Since he repeal right to vote he should try appealing to it As polls continue to show President Clinton losing to Republican challenger Bob Dole on questions of personal character and trustworthiness Dole supporters are baffled at how little it appears to matter Clinton has maintained his load in the polls How does he do it? Speculation is rampant as to whether it is because the public is too jaded not paying attention or simply does not trust any politician these days Sorted out the number I have a theory: Look to the ladies Two years after Clinton was set back on his heels by the white Dole appears to be suffering his biggest rfnmngn among anxious white females A recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll offers an excellent example It shows male voters to have mellowed considerably since 1994 when white nude voters voted 2-to-l for Republicans whose landslide swept Congress and most state governments A new poll shows Dole and Clinton in Newt Gingrich Congress attack social programs aimed at addressing their problems the Congress became a new source of anxiety especially among working women The gender gap always mean much Until the 1950s women voted pretty much the same patterns as men President Dwight Eisenhower actually received more votes from women than men while hard as it may be to believe John Kennedy actually received less of the vote than Richard Nixon did according to The Journal Change In political winds But the rising anti-government tide that Jimmy Carter helped usher in with his 1976 campaign cost Democrats dearly among male voters by the time Ronald Reagan capitalized on it in tiie 1980s Meanwhile as more women entered the work force their politics have become increasingly Democratic As an African-American and therefore a member of a group that has seen government turn against us and for us a promises to cut taxes and the size of government Women tend to see such promises as assaults on the issues and programs they care about including schools health care reproductive rights and social safety-net programs like Social Security and Medicare With that say Teeter and Hart Dole shot himself in the foot while speaking in Pennsylvania recently Dole boasted about his vote against the federal law allowing workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick child or after the birth of a child The Teeter-Hart poll shows women support that law by 84 percent to 11 percent Today I suspect Dole and other leading Republicans are suffering from the results of their own male biases Instead of looking for women like New budgetcutting Gov Orris-tine Todd Whitman who like men in their campaign styles perhaps they should be looking for women who can help them to think like women They might learn a few things As mainstream voters begin to see the a statistical tie (45 percent to 44 percent) among men Among women Clinton leads almost 2-to-l 57 percent to 31 percent giving him an overall lead of 51 percent to 31 percent The poll conducted jointly by GOP pollster Robert Teeter and Democratic pollster Peter Hart found campaign to be tailor-made for the concerns of most men but wide of the mark in addressing the concerns of most women Overall men tend to see government as a burden while women tend to see government as protectum Men therefore tend to be more delighted by GOP Clarence Page is a columnist with Tribune Media Services (435 Michigan Ave Suite 1500 Chicago IL 60611) Hie column appears Thursday.