A View From The Brink ... the beach is backwards

SFUSD loses first round in GWHS mural lawsuit

     

 

By Thomas K. Pendergast

      

The George Washington High School Alumni Association won the first round in its court fight with the San Francisco Unified School District over a series of murals on the life of the first president, the school’s namesake.

The alumni association is suing the district because, it alleges, the district did not follow the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it decided to cover up the murals before going through the CEQA process, thus committing “unlawful pre-commitment.” 

The district responded by filing a “move for a judgment on the pleadings,” which could have been an early knock-out blow to end the case, on the grounds that the alumni association failed to allege sufficient facts to demonstrate any unlawful pre-commitment for removing the murals from public view in violation of CEQA.

The court sided with the alumni association this time, allowing the case to continue.

      

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San Francisco school district ignored plans to save high school murals

      

 

Story and video by Thomas K. Pendergast

New information has emerged that the San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) Board of Education broke a deal decades ago, setting the stage for the present controversy about the George Washington High School murals. A 1968 agreement indicates that a deal was reached to keep the murals in place but include plaques beneath each one explaining the history left out of the murals, which was not done.

The agreement  also included a plan to paint a new alternative mural, which was eventually commissioned and completed.

The school’s alumni association recently proposed six points to resolve the issue.

       

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Plan to Cover Washington Murals Faces Hurdles

     

Detail from Victor Arnautoff's mural series on the Life of Washington in the lobby of San Francisco's George Washington High School. 

     

Story and photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

     

Board members guiding San Francisco’s school district might consider the fate of murals on the life of first president George Washington at his namesake high school settled, but opponents of the plan to cover them are responding like Revolutionary War hero, John Paul Jones, when he said he had only begun to fight.

Two groups opposed to the San Francisco School Board’s plan to cover the murals at George Washington High School, the George Washington High School Alumni Association and the Coalition to Protect Public Art (CPPA), are firing back with volleys of a lawsuit and a ballot measure.

     

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School Board Changes Course on Washington Murals

    

 

 

Video and story by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

The San Francisco School Board’s abrupt change in its decision to cover some controversial murals with panels instead of paint has satisfied almost no one, but has also left opponents of the painting option scrambling to respond.

On Aug. 13, with a 4-3 vote, the board backed off a previous unanimous vote in June to cover the “Life of George Washington” murals with paint, thus permanently destroying the artwork. The new plan is to preserve them but cover them over with some kind of solid material.

   

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SFUSD Board Votes to Cover Washington H.S. Murals

       

The room was packed with both mural supporters and opponents at the SFUSD Board of Education meeting on June 25, 2019 when the board voted unanimously to cover up the entire Life of Washington mural series.

 

Story and photos by Thomas K. Pendergast

         

The writing is on the wall for the controversial murals on the life of President George Washington at his namesake high school now that the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has voted to cover them over.

The only question left is whether they will be covered with paint or with solid panels.

One option before the SFUSD’s Board of Education was to cover the mural with a curtain, which will cost around $375,000.

Another option is to cover them with solid acoustic panels, at a cost of somewhere between $645,000 and $825,000.

The third option is to paint over them, at an initial estimated cost starting at $600,000. According to district staff, the painting option is likely to cost more than that. It is also estimated that the painting project might take up to three years to complete, because painting over them would make an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) necessary, plus additional legal steps might be unavoidable.

      

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Meeting on Washington High School Murals Turns Ugly

      

Julie Roberts-Phung (left) of Showing Up For Racial Justice is confronted in the ILWU Local 34 hall for disrupting a meeting on the George Washington High School murals.

     

Story and photos by Thomas K. Pendergast

      

The latest round in the fight over the George Washington High School murals took place on July 9, when a small group that want them painted over crashed a meeting of mural supporters and chaos ensued.

A panel of the murals’ supporters gathered at the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 34 Hall to announce the formation of a new political action committee and to talk about the options still available to them. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education voted unanimously last month to cover 13 murals at the high school that depict the life of U.S. President George Washington.

The artwork is controversial because it includes images of Afro-American slaves that he owned and pioneers walking past the corpse of a First Nation (Native American) warrior, with President Washington standing off to the left and pointing the way forward. Critics of the 83-year-old murals say these images do not belong in a high school because they traumatize some students.

       

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Mural Opponents Meet Defenders at Tour of George Washington H.S. Artwork

      

Sparks Fly Under Controversial Washington H.S. Murals

In front of a statue of President George Washington in the lobby of the school, George Washington High School Alumni Association President John Rothmann (left) listens to Amy Anderson (center) during the tour, as does Mariposa Villaluna (right). Photo by Thomas K. Pendergast.

     

By Thomas K. Pendergast

    

Opposing sides in the debate about destroying murals at George Washington High School (GWHS) squared off face to face under that same art on Saturday, May 4, in the school’s lobby, without social media or a Facebook buffer between them.

The school’s alumni association (GWHSAA) invited the general public to view the controversial murals and ask questions. Among those who showed up were the people calling for the destruction of the 83-year-old murals who wanted to make their voices heard.

The series of frescos were painted by artist Victor Arnautoff in 1936, during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal-era. The project was funded through the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), which created many public schools and libraries throughout San Francisco and the nation, including building this high school. The artwork depicts the life of the first U.S. president, including images of Afro-American slaves that he owned and pioneers walking past the corpse of a First Nation (Native American) warrior, with Washington standing off to the left and pointing the way forward.

     

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Murals at Washington High School Stoke Debate: Board to Decide Their Fate

      

     

By Thomas K. Pendergast

     

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.”

In 1949, when George Orwell published those words in his novel “1984,” the murals depicting the life of the first U.S. president at George Washington High School (GWHS) were already a decade old.

More than 80 years after artist Victor Arnautoff painted them, the murals now face destruction and are the focus of an intense debate about who gets to control the memory of the past and what that legacy will be in the future.

     

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Layoffs Begin After Disney Acquires Fox

   

 

BURBANK (CBSLA/AP) – Disney Thursday began the process of laying off senior executives at 21st Century Fox after it officially closed the mega $71.3 billion deal to acquire the corporation earlier this week.

According to the Los Angeles Times, about two-dozen mostly high level Fox executives who work at the 20th Century Fox Studios lot in Century City are being let go. The acquisition became official Wednesday.

At least 3,000 people, mostly at Fox, are expected to be laid off in the coming months as part of the merger, sources told the Times.

Disney also surprisingly announced Thursday it is shuttering the Fox 2000 label, which produced several films including “Fight Club,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Hidden Figures,” “The Fault in our Stars,” “Love, Simon” and mostly recently “The Hate U Give.”

Major cuts are expected at departments that have overlap, such as distribution, home video and marketing.

      

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Outside Lands Contract Approved; Goes to SF Supes

      

It is too early for singing, high fives and victory dancing, but sponsors of the Outside Lands concert moved closer to getting a 10-year extension on their contract after the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission approved the deal.

     

     

By Thomas K. Pendergast

      

In a unanimous vote on January 17, the commission sent the deal to the SF Board of Supervisors for final approval. The City’s contract with the Outside Lands Art and Music Festival expires in 2021.

The festival started in 2009, and in 2012 the contract was revised and renewed after making changes in response to complaints from neighbors, while also increasing the amount of money going to the SF Recreation and Parks Department.

Now the company that runs the festival, Another Planet Entertainment (APE), is asking for an additional extension for another 10 years, through 2031, because festival organizers say they need to plan three years in advance to line up artists and gear.

According to the department’s Dana Ketcham, revenues from the festival started at $815,000 that first year, but increased over time, until last year the annual three-day concert garnered them $3.3 million. APE also contributes to funding a park gardener with $85,000 annually, plus supplies to keep the polo field in good shape and reimbursement to the department for all of the overtime for its staff, which comes to about $100,000 per event.

       

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