Director of Finance and CFO Tom Fernandez (far left) makes a point during the Feb. 14-15 JACL National Board meeting in San Francisco, as interim ED Saki Mori, JACL National Board President Larry Oda and VP General Operations Ryan Yoshikawa listen. (Photo: Gil Asakawa)
Feb. 14-15 National Board meeting puts bad news on the front burner.
By P.C. Staff
There were a pair of interrelated results from the Feb. 14-15 JACL National Board meeting, held in person at JACL’s San Francisco headquarters and conducted mostly in executive session, with one being the latest news of the state of the organization’s finances, the other having to do with its staff.
With regard to finances, it was revealed at the meeting that JACL this year faces a deficit of about $1 million, due to the organization experiencing “significant losses tied to shrinking revenue and increasing labor costs.” JACL’s labor costs make up almost 60 percent of its expenses.
Discussed but dismissed as a way to save money was the possibility of canceling this summer’s National Convention, which will see the election of a new national board president and other officers, as well as voting on various resolutions. With some $200,000 already spent, however, there are no plans to cancel it.
Pausing publication of Pacific Citizen was also discussed as a means to save money, but it, too, was dismissed, due in part to the potential negative impact such a move could have with regard to maintaining JACL’s nonprofit status with the IRS.
JACL appears prepared, however, to potentially pause the 2027 JACL/OCA Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., the next Kakehashi trip and its Youth Programs. Also expected to be impacted are the organization’s social justice activities.
Regarding staff, the meeting’s decision to cut three JACL staff positions was revealed Feb. 18, effective that day, on the JACL’s website (tinyurl.com/2upwmu3f), minus those persons’ names and titles.
JACL stated: “On Feb. 15, the JACL National Board made the decision to implement an emergency expenditure reduction plan, which includes the layoff of three of our staff. This decision was made based on updated financial projections and an evaluation of National JACL programs. These actions were taken after deep consultation and reflect the challenging landscape for membership-based nonprofits alongside rising personnel and program costs. This decision was necessary based on our fiduciary duty as stewards of JACL.”
In an email to Pacific Citizen, JACL National President Larry Oda stated: “Reducing headcount is never pleasant. The board agonized over the decision, but given our financial and contractual constraints, our options were limited.
“We’ve been nursing a significant deficit for over a year, and it has grown. Our membership revenue is dropping, and our new revenues have not kept up to demand. We recognize the reason why we’re in this predicament and are taking the necessary steps to balance our budget,” Oda continued. “We still have work to do.”
Pacific Citizen has since learned who those terminated staffers are and obtained their permission to publish their names. They are former JACL Regional Director for the Northern California-Western Nevada-Pacific District Patty Wada; former Youth & Programs Director Cheyenne Cheng; and business manager Price Cobbs.
Among the three, Wada had the longest tenure, going back to 1992. She was the last JACL staffer to hold the regional director title. When she began, the JACL’s other regional directors were Karen Yoshitomi (Pacific Northwest), Jimmy Tokeshi (Pacific Southwest), Patricia Tom (Central California) and Bill Yoshino (Midwest).
Cheng had been with JACL since January 2020 when she was a Norman Y. Mineta Fellow. Cobbs, who became a full-time (32 hours per week) employee in November 2024, was originally a part-time temporary employee from September 2021.
Wada was informed of her termination via email; Cheng learned via a telephone call that she was “being let go effective immediately”; and according to Cobbs, he had a “regularly scheduled Zoom check-in meeting with my supervisor. He showed up in the office unexpectedly and fired me then. I would have appreciated some warning, as well as time to go over my current task and hand off duties in a more organized way.”
The three latest terminations are a sign of the long-term financial woes the organization has been facing, with these latest cuts bringing to six the total number of staffers who were let go over the last nine months, including the departure of former Executive Director David Inoue on July 2, 2025 (see “JACL, David Inoue Part Ways,” July 4, 2025, Pacific Citizen, tinyurl.com/5xvedshj), as well as two others last year prior to that: Tomiko Ismail at JACL National Headquarters in San Francisco, and Eva Ting at the Pacific Citizen in Los Angeles (see “Painful Changes to Preserve JACL,” June 20, 2025, Pacific Citizen, tinyurl.com/yudckz48).
Back to JACL’s Feb. 18 statement, it continued: “The JACL National Board expresses its gratitude and appreciation to the staff for their service and dedication to JACL’s mission. Their hard work over a combined 40 years of service has advanced the JACL and the community at large.”
Those terminations all occurred within the backdrop of JACL’s fiscal shortfalls. Regarding the JACL’s deficit, in the June 20, 2025, P.C. column jointly authored by Inoue and Oda, they wrote: “As we entered 2025, we realized we needed to address a significant and increasingly regular gap in our budget. It appeared we would be ending 2024 with nearly a half-million budget deficit and a similar expectation for 2025” and “Ultimately, the board issued the charge to reduce expenses by $350,000 per year to shorten the deficit and place our finances on a more stable footing going forward without what was seemingly becoming a built-in deficit to the annual budget.”
In attendance at the Feb. 14-15 meeting were Oda, interim Executive Director Saki Mori, Director of Finance and CFO Tom Fernandez, National Youth Representative Claire Inouye, Development VP Gary Nakamura, Treasurer Jonathan Okamoto, General Operations VP Ryan Yoshikawa, Membership VP Dominque Mashburn, interim P.C. Editorial Board Chair Gil Asakawa, legal counsel Ken Massey and district governors Sheldon Arakaki (PND), Nancy Takayama (PSWD), Paul Uyehara (ED), Mariko Fujimoto (NCWNP) and Eric Langowski (MD). CCD Gov. Brian Tsukimura was absent.
Attending remotely were P.C. Executive Editor Allison Haramoto, IDC Gov. Kelly Asao, Public Affairs VP Seia Watanabe and National Youth/Student Council Chair Remy Kageyama.
Present in the audience was past NCWNP District Gov. Carol Kawase.
