Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Among those who attended last week's meeting at Hakone Gardens were (from left) Dodie Walker and Allen and Becky Breed.

Hakone calls meeting in wake of exec's departure

By Sarah Lombardo

Hakone Gardens administrator Janet Kennedy has apparently resigned her position, in which she oversaw rentals and managed day-to-day business affairs at the Japanese garden.

Sources at Hakone, now under the management of the Hakone Foundation, say efforts are underway to persuade Kennedy to reverse her decision, reportedly undertaken in response to management changes at the gardens.

Members have called for a meeting to be held Wed., Aug. 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Hakone Gardens, located at 21000 Big Basin Way. The subject of the public meeting, members said, is resolving disagreements between members on how the gardens should be run.

Management of the gardens changed hands from the city to the foundation in June, after the city made it known during budget hearings earlier in the year that drastic cuts might have to be made in the gardens' budget. Foundation members began looking at the gardens' finances and decided it might be a good time to try to make a break for independence. But the transition has not been without some bumps in the road. A member who wished to remain anonymous said proposed cost-saving measures are ruffling some feathers .

Roy Swanson, who works at the gardens, said members aware of the dispute are anxious to work it out so that the gardens will not be in the middle. "Everybody hopes the foundation will be able to muster the support to run the garden the way that it needs," he said.

In a presentation to visitors at the gardens last Wednesday night, Swanson said that what the garden needed to thrive was more than good business sense.

"It has to have heart," he said.

Syd Dunton, the foundation's new treasurer, told attendees at a meeting last Wednesday night that foundation coffers are currently at $129,000. "We've taken on a lot of expenses from the city," Dunton said. "But what we are making compensates for what we are spending. We're making more than we are spending."

Dunton used the salary of Jack Tomlinson, the Japanese garden specialist at Hakone, as an example of one expense added to the foundation's budget with the transfer of the gardens. Under city management, Tomlinson's salary and those of one full-time and one part-time gardener were paid from city funds. But the foundation is now responsible for salaries. On the other hand, with the takeover, Tomlinson has become the only gardener at Hakone.

Foundation President Daryl Becker agreed that the foundation is doing well right now financially.

"It looks like we are doing better than the budget requires," he said. But Becker cautioned that the foundation must maintain reserves for emergencies and must concentrate on increasing its business meetings.

"One of the things that we are really going to be doing here is promoting our business meetings," he said.

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