After a life of public service, former Santa Barbara County Supervisor and Santa Maria City Councilmember Toru Miyoshi died on Aug. 13. He was 90 years old.
Miyoshi served as a Santa Maria City Council member from 1978 to 1982, according to a county press release. Later in 1982, he was elected to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, where he served two terms before returning to Santa Maria City Council from 1992 to 2000.
During that time, Miyoshi was appointed to several boards and committees, including the California Coastal Commission, Southern California Hazardous Waste Management Authority, county Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Tri-Counties Oil Committee, and the Area Agency on Aging, where he advocated for human rights and environmental protections.
Former Santa Maria Mayor Larry Lavagnino worked closely with Miyoshi during his lengthy career in politics and said Miyoshi’s true passion for public service and his kindhearted disposition, even during heated debates, were his most outstanding qualities.
“I don’t think I ever heard him raise his voice in anger once,” Lavagnino said.
That’s not to say Miyoshi didn’t love a good debate, and Lavagnino said his former colleague’s dedication to total fairness often caused unusually lengthy City Council meetings.
“That was Toru,” Lavagnino said with a laugh. “He was going to explore every option.”
Lavagnino said that when Miyoshi served as a county supervisor, he was instrumental in closing the Casmalia Resources Hazardous Waste Management Facility, a toxic dump that was declared a Superfund site in need of immediate cleanup by the EPA in 2001. The site closed in in 1989 after a decade-long fight led by several Casmalia residents and county officials to shut it down.
Miyoshi also played a key role in restoring Waller Park, according to community members. He helped develop and build the park’s lakeview terrace structure, a popular stone gathering area where residents often host parties and events. A plaque of appreciation for Miyoshi’s hard work on the project was dedicated to him in September 2001, and the plaque still sits near the Waller Park terrace today.
Born in Guadalupe in 1928, Miyoshi moved to Santa Maria with his family in 1933. He attended local schools until he was relocated to Gila River War Relocation Center, a Japanese concentration camp in Arizona where Miyoshi was held during WWII. Miyoshi graduated from Butte High School in 1945 while still incarcerated in the concentration camp, and a year later, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was deployed to the Korean War in 1950.
“What impressed me the most about Toru Miyoshi was the fact that he honorably served his country during the Korean War even though his family had been forced into a concentration camp during World War II,” 5th District County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino wrote in a statement on Aug. 20. “He was a true leader and will be greatly missed.”
Miyoshi graduated from the University of Southern California in 1955 and married Jeanne Kojima before returning to Santa Maria in 1957, according to his obituary. The couple raised two daughters, Joni Miyoshi and Lisa Daum, and had three grandchildren.
A public celebration of Miyoshi’s life will be held at the Dudley-Hoffman Mortuary, Crematory, and Memory Gardens on Aug. 24 from 10 a.m. to noon.
This article appears in Aug 23-30, 2018.