Dear City Council members, Mayor Mueller and Mayor Pro Tem Taylor, and members, chair and vice chair of the Sister City Committee, I am hoping that as the leaders of Menlo Park, which became a new Mayors for Peace City in 2018, you will consider ways to commemorate the 74th and 75th anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, this year and next (to start a tradition) on August 6th/9th. As I proposed the City's joining Mayors for Peace, and was happy to be presented a copy of the proclamation at the Aug. 6, 2018 Council meeting from Mayor Ohtaki (who had recently returned from a visit to our Sister City Bizen, Japan), I'd like to suggest some ways the city can honor the dates. I realize that there is short lead-time and that the full Council and Sister City committee members may not be available during the summer months, but I believe that some commemoration could be possible, and we could plan ahead, as well, for 2020. 2020 is a significant year for Mayors for Peace, which in 2003 declared: "With the hope of realizing a world free of nuclear weapons while hibakusha are still alive...[and] developed the 2020 Vision (Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons), which is a set of concrete action guidelines aiming for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020. Based on this vision, Mayors for Peace is globally promoting various initiatives aimed at the abolition of nuclear weapons, forging links with cities' citizens *[now 7756 cities in 163 countries and regions, including Menlo Park and East Palo Alto in 2018],* NGOs and other organizations around the world. The EU Parliament, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Japan Association of City Mayors, and the National Council of Japan Nuclear-Free Local Authorities have expressed their support for the 2020 Vision." http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/ecbn/index.html Options for commemorative actions/events could include: 1) a proclamation read at the nearest City Council meeting to the date/s, and sent to the Menlo Park *Almanac.* (While Mayor Ohtaki presented me with the Mayors for Peace Proclamation last year, on the Council's August 6th meeting, the event didn't get the publicity it could have received.) 2) Another option would be to contact local churches to ring bells in commemoration of the historic events, a reminder of the terrible destruction of weapons of war. 3) A related action would be that if a commemorative proclamation were made, the City could send it to our Sister Cities of Bizen, Japan and Kochi, India, who are also Mayors for Peace Cities, in solidarity. 4) A more ambitious event, possibly for 2020, could include the screening of an excellent film that I have from the Director/Producer David Rothauser, *Hibakusha: Our Life to Live **(The Lives of Hiroshima-Nagasaki Survivors). *It is narrated by Phil Donahue. The film was world premiered at the U.N. Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in May of 2010. Mr. Rothhauser has offered to come to a screening to introduce the film (and he has a version shorter than the 79 min. production copy). See http://www.hibakusha-ourlifetolive.org/ (including the film trailer). He is active in campaigning to introduce the content of Japan's constitution Article 9 in the U.S., which would outlaw war as a political tool: https://memoryproductions.wordpress.com/ . I have been in correspondence with him and can verify his schedule and help make arrangements. We could make a special invitation to the local Japanese community. As a large event, perhaps the City could sponsor the film for screening at the M/A Performing Arts facility and we could extend a broader invitation to include East Palo Alto residents (also a new Mayors for Peace City in 2018), and other Peninsula residents as a city-sponsored event, if Menlo Park can use the facility in August. For a smaller venue, perhaps we could use the comfortable City Council Chambers, and show the film as a Library-sponsored event. I have access to a large screen (120 "), projector, DVD player and sound system that I used at an Earth Day program at the Los Altos Library recently, that would work well in the Chambers, which has comfortable seating for more than the basement room in the Library - the chambers are already used for city special events. 5) And finally, as another alternative for 2020, local schools could participate in a city-sponsored youth essay/art project and participants could be honored by showing their work at the Library, which has done several successful small exhibits. The entries could be made before the end of school year, and celebrated in August. We could do some of these things on the rather short lead-time now, to raise community awareness of the anniversaries, and of the ongoing international efforts to ban nuclear weapons, including the 2017 U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (signed by over 100 nations, yet to be ratified by the required 50), and Eleanor Holmes Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act and work on a more ambitious program for 2020. This could establish a tradition, and we could also consider joint events with East Palo Alto and other peninsula Mayors for Peace cities that I hope to "recruit" to join as a volunteer project for the Peninsula/Palo Alto Women's Intl. League for Peace Freedom, of which I am a member, and as a concerned peninsula resident (Palo Alto and Menlo Park) since the early 1970s. I've attached a copy of last year's Menlo Park proclamation and that of East Palo Alto. Yours in Peace, Judy Adams 737 Live Oak Ave. Menlo Park (image/jpeg attachment: Menlo_Park_Mayors_for_Peace_Proclamation.jpg ) (image/jpeg attachment: East_Palo_Mayors_for_Peace_Proclamation_6-19-18__1_.jpg )
