THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:Assemblyman goes to Japan to talk trade

Sushi.

That’s one thing Costa Mesa Assemblyman Van Tran said he’s looking forward to during a trip to Japan to meet with high-ranking government officials and discuss trade relations.

Tran was specially invited by the Japanese foreign ministry and left Tuesday for a five-day trip.

“Basically this is a long-standing invitation that’s gone on for about a year now,” Tran said by phone Tuesday before leaving.

He planned to meet with Japan’s ministers of justice, science and technology, and also with corporate officials from Panasonic, Honda and Kikkoman.

Tran said his goal for the trip is “to basically promote trade and have discussions to build better relations between the people of Japan and California.”

Last year California exported about $14 billion of goods to Japan, and the state was the point of entry for $86 billion in Japanese goods to be sold in the U.S.

But Tran’s trip isn’t all business. He said he planned to visit the peace memorial in Hiroshima this weekend, and to eat sushi.

TROUBLED WATER OVER BRIDGE

Residents’ questions about planned major construction on Newport Beach’s Bay Island led City Councilman Michael Henn to call a public meeting on March 22 to explain the project.

Bay Island residents plan to rebuild the bridge that leads to the island and the sea wall around it.

Henn said people living on Balboa Peninsula at the bridge’s other end are worried about changes to the bridge location and the possible effects to the adjacent beach and fishing area.

Residents will come armed with questions, said Mary Ann Miller, who lives on the peninsula opposite the bridge. She’s not sure the correct procedures were followed with the project, and she fears the project might take out some trees and rosebushes on her property.

“This is a big deal,” she said. “It’s not some little thing where somebody wants to move their dock and somebody won’t let them because there’s eelgrass.”

Henn said there may be some misinformation about the project spreading in the community, and that’s why he scheduled the forum.

“The first step is that everyone has as good an understanding of the project as they can,” he said.

The meeting will be at 6 p.m. March 22 at Newport Harbor Yacht Club, 720 W. Bay Ave., Newport Beach.

BEAN-COUNTING BLOG

Staying true to his accountant roots, Newport Beach Rep. John Campbell this week announced a new venue to talk about federal budget and spending issues: the Green Eye Shade blog.

It’s a featured blog on Townhall.com, a conservative website that also carries blogs written by right-leaning radio commentators Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved.

“If you think federal taxes are too high and the government spends too much of your money, then you will be interested in the Green Eyeshade,” Campbell said in a statement. “Every day there is a lot going on in Congress that gets missed by the mainstream media.”

Campbell’s background before he became a legislator was in accounting, and he’s been on the vanguard of first state and now federal efforts to rein in government spending. His new blog can be found at https://greeneyeshade.townhall.com/blog .

STILL WORKING FOR PARDONS

And Huntington Beach Rep. Dana Rohrabacher announced progress this week in his fight to clear two convicted Border Patrol agents who are serving prison terms. A statement from his office on Tuesday said Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), who chairs a House foreign affairs subcommittee, has agreed to hold hearings on what Rohrabacher suspects was foreign influence in the agents’ case.

The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, were convicted of the 2005 shooting of a drug smuggler who crossed illegally into the U.S. Critics have said the agents didn’t follow procedures and then tried to cover up the shooting.

Rohrabacher has said the federal policy the agents allegedly violated by using their weapons is “nonsensical.” He already has actively sought pardons for the men and brought the wife of one as his guest to the president’s State of the Union address in January.

“This hearing will permit us to conduct an official investigation into aspects of the Ramos and Compean prosecutions and others’ cases where a pattern of questionable foreign influence seems to exist,” Rohrabacher said in a statement.

“If a foreign government is having an undue influence on the decisions of our government to make concessions for illegal aliens over our law enforcement officers, the American people have a right to know about it.”