Koi at San Jose’s Japanese Friendship Backyard want extra assist

The koi at San Jose’s Japanese Friendship Backyard may use one other serving to hand from the neighborhood.

The Coyote Creek flood in February 2017 devastated the backyard at Kelley Park, flooding the picturesque venue’s tea home and damaging the filtering system and pumps for the koi ponds. The surviving koi have been moved to at least one pond, and the nonprofit San Jose Parks Basis put in two short-term, moveable filters for the pond in 2018. However these filters, which weren’t actually deliberate for greater than 5 years of use, will quickly should be changed as nicely.

The Parks Basis is within the midst of a marketing campaign to boost $18,000 to just do that. An nameless donor has supplied to match as much as $7,500 in contributions made by the tip of January.

San Jose Parks Basis Govt Director James Reber stated the final state of the koi is comparatively good, however the metropolis remains to be ready for funding and a contractor to put in a everlasting water pump and filtering system. Final yr, the neighborhood responded to the inspiration’s name to fund a particular holding tank to guard child koi on the backyard from hungry birds, and Reber hopes folks will step as much as assist the colourful fish once more. Donations will be made at www.sanjoseparks.org.

The koi have been a function of the backyard — modeled after the Korakuen Backyard in Okayama, San Jose’s sister metropolis in Japan — since 1966, a yr after it was devoted. And this isn’t the primary time San Jose’s koi have been challenged. A virus in 2009 worn out greater than 200 fish within the ponds.

FAMILY POLITICS: Santa Clara County has had a couple of households with a number of members serving in elected workplace, nevertheless it’s a minimum of uncommon to have two generations serving on completely different metropolis councils on the similar time. And, in an area dominated my males, it’s refreshing to see a mother-daughter mixture this time round.

We’re speaking about Rosemary Kamei, who was elected to the San Jose Metropolis Council final yr and was nominated to be vice mayor, and her daughter, Ellen Kamei, who’s on her second time period on the Mountain View Metropolis Council and served as mayor in 2021.

Earlier than successful her election in June’s major, Rosemary Kamei had beforehand served on the Santa Clara Valley Water District board of administrators and the Santa Clara County board of training, offering a powerful position mannequin for her daughter. “It comes from numerous neighborhood engagement in our household,” she stated. “As a father or mother, you hope that you simply’re kids are ready to do no matter they will do in life, however I’m very proud.”

MUSICAL TASTE OF ITALY: The Mission Chamber Orchestra of San Jose will delve into the works of composers from North and South America of Italian descent at its subsequent live performance, Jan. 29 on the Italian American Heritage Basis’s Cultural Middle in downtown San Jose.

This system contains works by Romeo Cascarino, Joseph Curiale and Jeremy Cavaterra. However there are additionally a few acquainted names for Northern California classical music followers: Louise Canepa from the Monterey space and the late Henry Mollicone, founding father of the Winchester Orchestra in San Jose. Brian Holmes, one other native favourite who has performed with the San Jose Symphony and Opera San Jose, will carry out the horn solo on Mollicone’s “Horn Concerto.”