HUNTINGTON BEACH : Sister City President Scores Kelly Remark

The president of the city’s Sister City Assn. issued a statement Friday criticizing City Councilman Jack Kelly for a controversial remark he made about a group of Japanese visitors.

Association President Steven C. Eggleston said in the statement that members of the group are “shocked and embarrassed by the thoughtless and disrespectful remarks” Kelly made during the Jan. 7 council meeting about a delegation from Anjo, Japan, one of Huntington Beach’s sister cities.

As Mayor Peter Green, Anjo Mayor Shuji Iwatsuki and others in the visiting group exchanged bows, Kelly remarked to fellow Councilman Earle Robitaille: “How could guys who bow that much ever bomb (Pearl) Harbor?”

Kelly’s off-camera comment was not heard by anyone else in the council chambers, but it was picked up by a microphone and could be heard in the cable TV broadcast of the meeting.

Eggleston said that because the association “fosters understanding, trust and mutual respect . . . between the citizens of Huntington Beach and Anjo,” Kelly’s comments “are in direct opposition to and contradicts all we as an organization have stood for” since it was established nine years ago.

Last week, Green and Sister City Assn. member Don Nielsen berated Kelly for his remark. But Eggleston’s statement is the association’s first official response to Kelly’s comment, which came as Green was accepting a $93,000 check from Iwatsuki that his city had raised for Huntington Beach’s Municipal Pier reconstruction project.

Green called for Kelly to apologize, but Kelly has said he does not plan to. Kelly discounted his remark as “just another cheap, smart Kellyism, and it’s backfired on me.” He did not respond to requests for additional comment Friday.

Eggleston, in his statement, said, “Perhaps one of the more difficult and unfortunate aspects of Councilman Kelly’s remark was explaining it to the many young people who are members of the Sister City Assn. and have participated in student exchanges with Anjo.

“What these youngsters learn, and what we adult members have seen in our many other cultural exchanges, is that the citizens of Anjo have been unfailing in their graciousness and support for the Sister City concept.”

He concluded: “While we are saddened by the extremely unfortunate remarks of Councilman Kelly, they have served to underscore the need for groups such as the Sister City Assn. to continue to work for understanding and mutual respect among the peoples of the world.”