The Consulate General of Japan in Los Angeles has renewed its $10,000-a-month contract with Californian nonprofit group Community Partners for another year.
Community Partners is tasked with helping the consulate better understand California by facilitating monthly meetings with “representative individuals” and conducting “research on various topics related to the history of California’s social and political trends,” according to a newly disclosed lobbying filing with the US Department of Justice. America’s wealthiest and most populous state is home to more than a third of all Japanese-Americans and accounted for almost 16 percent of all US exports to Japan in 2019.
The contract, which runs from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021, was signed by Deputy Consul General Hiroki Matsuo and Community Partners President and CEO Paul Vandeventer, who is also registered as a foreign agent on the account. Also working on the account are Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro and Andrew Levey.
The original contract between the consulate and Community Partners dates back to 2017 but was only filed with the US Justice Department in April 2019.
Meanwhile, the Japanese consulate in San Francisco on March 31 ended its four-year-old contract with Sacramento-based California Strategies to provide analysis and recommendations regarding opportunities for the Japanese high-speed rail industry in the state.