JLGC NEWSLETTER­Japan Local Government Center ( CLAIR, New York )Issue no. 91/ January 2018

1. The JETAA KenJETkai Program
Mark Frey, JETAA USA Country Representative

JAPAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER WASHINGTON D.C. SEMINARISSUE NO. 91 / JANUARY 2018

1. The JETAA KenJETkai
Program(Page 1-2)
2. Japan Local Government
Center Washington D.C.
Seminar (Page 2-4)
3. Intern Report (Page 5-7)
4. National League of Cities(NLC) City Summit 2017
(Page 8)Advertisement: Japan Local
Specialty Fair in Gardena,CA (Page9)

JETAA USA is thrilled to announce a
new global program for former JET
Program participants to re-connect you
with your Japanese home so you cancontinue the grassroots cross-cultural
exchange and friendship that was at
the heart of your JET Program
experience: The JETAA KenJETkai
Program.
The KenJETkai groups are a way for you to connect directlywith your prefecture by forming a community of fellow
alumni who shared the same “local Japan” as you, regardlessof where you live in the world.
To get started, go to https://www.facebook.com/kenjetkai/and "Like" and "Follow" the KenJETkai Page. Then, checkout the KenJETkai Starter Guide in the top Post to find yourprefecture’s group. Once you join your group, invite yourfriends from your prefecture to join too, whether alumni,
current JETs, or friends in your prefecture.

JAPAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER
3 Park Avenue, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10016-5902
212.246.5542 office • 212.246.5617 fax
www.jlgc.org

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Your KenJETkai group is a great opportunity to share memories and interests, and tosupport your prefecture by letting the world know how wonderful it is. KenJETkai can alsoenhance the professional and personal networks of everyone involved, in areas such as
educational exchange, tourism, and trade.

After celebrating the 30th anniversary year of the JET Program, alumni around the world areclearly feeling a renewed sense of shared experience and community. KenJETkai allows you
to build on this natsukashii feeling and make your ties to each other and your furusato in
Japan an active part of your daily life.

2. Japan Local Government Center Washington D.C. Seminar
Kotaro Kashiwai, Assistant Director, Representative of Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture
The annual JLGC Washington D.C. Seminar was held over three days from October 17th to19th. This seminar was arranged by National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Thisseminar’s main goals are to help JLGC staff and employees who work for Japanese local andprefectural level governments who are staying in the United States learn about the uniqueadministrative structure in the United States. It helps particularly in strengthening ournetworks with the participating organizations.
On the first day, we visited the NCSL office and received a lecture from the staff mainly on
the role of NCSL, intergovernmental relations and the court system in the United States. Onevery interesting area that was talked about was the regulation of drones.
Next, we received another lecture from Dr. Kirk Jonas, who is director of the National
Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices, on the financial situations of thestates and various other issues they face. He mentioned several of these, such as problems
with discrimination by police officers, nonational university in the United States,and increasing medical and nursing home
expenses for senior citizens.
After the lecture, we moved to the Tax
Foundation for the last lecture on the firstday. The staff talked about the overview offederal tax
reform and they explained that proposals toreduce the corporate tax and pass-throughtaxes are the most important aspects forbusiness reform.

Tax Foundation2

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At the end of the first day, we held a
reception to which previous CLAIR
Fellowship program participants wereinvited, along with Japanese embassy
staff and members of the JET alumni
in Washington D.C. . We enjoyedtalking with them very much.
On the second day, we visited
Annapolis, Maryland. We met with Ms.
Maggie McIntosh, who is amember of the Maryland State Houseof Delegates. She explained about theprocess of budgeting in the Marylandstate legislature, the flow of proposed legislation,and the relationship between the delegates and thegovernor. After the explanation, we moved to theMaryland State House, which is the oldest capitol
building in current use in the United States, andhad a tour.
After the tour, we visited the Governor’s Office andwe met Mr. Martin Madden, who is an advisor tothe governor, and Mr. Walter F. Landon, who isdirector of homeland security, and we learned aboutcooperation between state police and city police,and cybersecurity in Maryland State.

CLAIR Reception

The Governor’s Office

At the end of second day, we visited the UnitedStates Naval Academy.
Mr. Paul J. Tortora took us on a tour and he
explained about the lifestyle and training of thestudents and the facilities of the Naval Academy.

On the last day, we visited the White House as theThe United States Naval Academy
first destination. Since the 9/11 attack, public tour
requests for the White House must be submitted through one's Member of Congress, so wefeel so lucky that we could enter the building. It was fascinating to see the history of thebuilding.

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Our next destination was the Arlington County
Office, where we could have a chance to hear aboutcity planning. Arlington County revises its plan
once every 5 years and the staff mentioned issues
they are continuing to grapple with: (1) It isdifficult to secure lands for schools to meet theneeds of a growing school population, and;(2) There are a lot of vacant office buildings inArlington.
After we visited the Arlington County Office, wevisited the Arlington Public Schools. We met Dr.
Patrick K. Murphy, who is a superintendent of theArlington Public Schools and we could ask somequestions about how the schools keep their highstandard of education and the utilization ofInformation Technology (IT) in the classroom. He
mentioned hiring high quality teachers is one of
the reasons why they can keep a high standard ofeducation. He also mentioned they utilize iPads forthe special classes for handicapped children andthis is very effective for their study.

Arlington County Office

Arlington Public Schools

As the last destination for this seminar, we visited
the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis
Center (MS-ISAC). MS-ISAC has a role for cyberthreat prevention, protection, response andrecovery for the nation’s state, local, territorial andtribal governments. The staff explained how
MS-ISAC prevents, protects, responds to andrecovers from cyber threats and serves as a central
resource for situational awareness.
We appreciate greatly the highly organized
MS-ISACschedule by the NCSL staff, Ms. Molly Ramsdell,Ms. Kathy Brennan Wiggins and Ms. KatherineBoyce, and we are hoping to continue thisseminar to deepen our knowledge of federal, state, and local governments of the UnitedStates.

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3. Intern Report
Nozomi Yamaguchi, CLAIR Tokyo, Representative of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
Recently, I was fortunate to have the chance to take part in an internshipprogram at the Japan Local Government Center (CLAIR New York). This wasa really valuable experience for me and it will definitely be useful for living
and working in our globalizing society. Now I would like to share a part of myexperience on the internship program as follows.
As a part of my internship at CLAIR’s New York office, I was able to attend
the annual convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police(IACP). This year, the convention was held on October 21-24 at the Philadelphia Convention
Center. Although it is called the International Association of Chiefs of Police, not all
attendees were necessarily chiefs of police, as local police officers, retired police officers,
civilian police staff like myself, professors, students, and others were also in attendance.
The convention consisted of special events, about 300 seminars and meetings in total, as wellas an exposition showcasing police equipment and technology. Due to the nature of the event,the venue was under very tight security for its entire duration and unfortunately, there were a
few conflicts between the police force and protesters around the venue.
The most impressive event at the convention was thegeneral assembly held on the third day. The assembly
welcomed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions andLondon’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner CressidaDick. While Attorney General Sessions spoke about thefederal government’s new policies and financial support
for the police, Commissioner Dick shared her experienceas the first female to serve at her post. Listening to thespeeches of such prominent guests in person was an
unforgettable experience for me and it made me realize
the importance and significance of this event.

IACP Annual Convention

As for the seminars conducted by a variety of speakers, attending seminars on topics likerecruiting and hiring, psychology, and wellness was an easy choice considering the nature of
my work as a civilian police administrator. In particular, I learned through the seminar on
hiring how the Japanese police’s current problem of attracting skilled young people among
many other professions is a similarly important issue for the police in the United States. It was
especially interesting to learn about the methods used to attract young applicants through

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social networking sites, and how analyses of the characteristics and trends of the younger
generation were the same as analyses in Japan. I was also able to learn about hiring problems
particularly relevant to America, such as the importance of racial equality in addition togender equality in the hiring process. Learning about these issues reminded me that America
is a multicultural nation.
At the exposition, some of
the latest technology on
display took me bysurprise. The equipment,
for example, which
included guns, protective
gear and vehicles, wasLatest technology on display
tougher and more
powerful than the Japanese equivalents. Such equipment must be necessary, however, whenconfronting dangerous criminals. As for software, the development of facial recognition
technology was very impressive. This sort of technology could become indispensable for bigevents and large facilities.
In conclusion, thanks to this experience, I was able to learn the latest information about thestate of American law enforcement. Not only the convention, but the whole internshipprogram experience was beneficial and positively affected my point of view and way ofthinking. I would like to utilize these experiences in my work and life.
Naoki Hirose, CLAIR Tokyo, Representative of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board ofEducation
I had an internship at CLAIR NY for one month this October.
The main purpose of my internship was to study the use of Information
Technology in American Education.
These days, various kinds of IT, software and apps are used in theclassroom, and picking the right IT for schools is more important than ever.
I cooperated with the New York City Board of Education and the Japanese Consulate Generalin New York, and was able to visit several schools to view the status of IT usage in classrooms.
I’d like to introduce some examples.
First, I’d like to talk about classroom management software. Using classroom management
software, all digital materials used in class can be viewed online, and reviewed by students

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after class, or even in the event of absence from class. All grades and homework can be viewed
online, and used to further improve students’ performance in the classroom.
Second, I’ll introduce programming as a school subject.

Starting from early elementary school, students study computer programming. First they
start with small projects, like making a toy car drive straight, or turn, in order to learn thebasic thinking of computer programming. Later, some places use software such as “Snap”
which allows computer code to be built from easy to understand “blocks”. This helps students
focus on the structure of code, without worrying about language. And in high school, students
learn programming languages.
Last, I want to mention the efforts to promote students’ ability to
speak and express themselves. The picture on the left shows a photobooth in the classroom. Students use a green screen to produce“school news” which is viewed by students. They can edit the videos,and choose the background freely. This helps them improve theirspeaking abilities.
In some classes, in order to facilitate discussion in the classroom,
students’ desks could be easily moved to create small groups forgroup-work, discussion, or debate.
It is often said that Americans are good at expressing themselves
publicly, or giving presentations, and I believe these parts of theeducation system play a large role in facilitating these abilities.

Tables in the school

During my internship, I also had an opportunity to attend thewelcome back reception for the JETs.
At Clair Tokyo, I’m engaged in the management of the JET
Program I have often thought about how JETs keep their ties toJapan alive after completing their appointment on the program, so
I was glad to have a chance to hear about that directly from JETs.

JET Returnee’s Reception

Each JET I spoke with wanted to continue to act as a bridge between their home countries
and Japan, and I reaffirmed to myself the importance of the JET Program.
I was also able to attend the “Washington Seminar” and several other seminars, so it was avery fulfilling month.
I would like to express my thanks to those who I spoke with during my internship.

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4. National League of Cities (NLC) City Summit 2017
Kaori Kurauchi, Assistant Director, Representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs andCommunications

We attended the NLC City Summit in Charlotte,NC, which was held from November 15th to18th.
We also held a “Japan Night” Reception at thisconference. NLC is a national organization ofmunicipal governments, consisting mainly ofelected officials that represent the interests oflocal governments in the US.
At the conference, keynote addresses,
educational sessions, discussions and workshops
were held on various topics. For example, at theOpening General Session, Mayor Barry
Opening General Session(Nashville, TN) shared her personal experience on
the subject of drug overdose. She called for action by all thecommunities attending the conference to combat what is known as
the ‘opioid crisis’.
One of the workshops at the conference, “Charlotte’s Urban Sports
Venues and the Partnerships Behind Them”, was a fielddemonstration. We walked around the city and toured a variety ofsports venues such as the Bank of America Stadium, the Spectrum
Center and BB&T Ballpark. These are home to the Carolina
Panthers, Charlotte Hornets and the Charlotte Knights. We could
learn about the public/private partnerships required to make theseprojects happen.

The Spectrum Center

The highlight for us was our “Japan Night” reception on
November 17th. This time we were happy to have ourmanaging director come from Tokyo. Many people,
including NLC President Mayor Stodola (Little Rock, AR)and former CLAIR Fellows, came to the reception andtogether we introduced CLAIR to the other NLC participants.
Japan Night8

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