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

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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Former USF radio station going back on SF Bay Area airwaves

     

Radio personalities Gage “D.J. Gage” Kenady (left) and Henry “Hank” Wimmer are volunteer radio DJs at the station studio of KXSF in San Francisco.

 

Story and photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

       

After a seven-year exile, KXSF radio will be launched back onto the airwaves at 102.5 FM, on July 10, to bring its free-format, non-commercial programming to San Francisco.

Formerly known as KUSF, the entire staff was booted from the University of San Francisco (USF) in 2011, when the Federal Communications Commission license for their spot at 90.3 FM was sold by the university to a corporation owned by the University of Southern California, which operates classical music stations. According to media reports, USF received $1 million for the license, the programming was changed and the station was rebranded KDFC.

The former KUSF launched in 1963 as a campus-only, student-run AM station. Ten years later, it was offered an FM slot on the dial and became a non-commercial educational station. In 1981, it began 24-hour programming. Over the years, it received several awards for broadcasting excellence.

Now renamed as San Francisco Community Radio (SFCR), with the new call letters KXSF, the station will operate for 12 hours of the day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and then from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m.

The organizers at the station plan to share the new frequency with the San Francisco Public Press (SFPP), a local newspaper published quarterly, but SFPP staff said they are not ready to go on the airwaves quite yet.

     

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Fort Scott planners seek social justice partners

     

Rob Thomson, a federal preservation officer for the Presidio Trust, describes the stockade at Ft. Scott standing behind him.

        

Story and photos by Thomas K. Pendergast

       

It was once a place dedicated to war, with the prospect of death, but now the Presidio Trust is hoping to turn Fort Scott into a campus committed to peaceful change and social justice.

Mostly built from 1909 to 1912 and used as barracks for soldiers assigned to fire the big artillery guns that once guarded the San Francisco Bay, Ft. Scott is one of the last remaining relatively unoccupied places in the Presidio.

The 30-acre site has 20 Spanish Revival style buildings in need of renovation, and the Presidio Trust is looking for developers and organizations to help remodel and lease them.

Two other buildings have already been renovated, with one building alone costing $11 million to renovate over a five year span.

But that is only part of the challenge, because the Trust is not looking for just anyone with money to become tenants.

“We’ve been contemplating this for a long time,” said Jean Fraser, the Presidio Trust’s chief executive officer. “We’re now at a point where we have the financial wherewithal to manage the rest of the Presidio and we’re really interested in seeing whether there are organizations out there that want to make Fort Scott a really special place, serving a higher purpose.”

    

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SFUSD's Frank McCoppin School gets $10 million overhaul

Standing in front of the newly-remodeled Frank McCoppin Elementary School on the first day of school are (left to right) PTO co-chair Hannah Wright, Principal Bennett Lee, PTO treasurer Brielle Neilson and parent-volunteer Breana Wheeler.

   

Story and photos by Thomas K. Pendergast

         

While most people across the country obsessed about the solar eclipse traveling from coast to coast on Aug. 21, students at Frank McCoppin Elementary School lined up for their first day of school under a grey, overcast sky.

Principal Bennett Lee stood before the students in a blue suit and tie to begin the new school year. Holding a microphone, he addressed the school community through a pair of portable loudspeakers.

“I don’t believe we will see a solar eclipse,” he said. “Here’s a solution. Teachers, if you have a laptop, or you’re able to get online and hook it up to your screen, watch it from National Geographic.com. That will give you a nice idea of what an eclipse looks like. It doesn’t come along often, so we don’t want to miss the opportunity.

“We are going to have a wonderful day. boys and girls. Enjoy your first day. Close your eyes for a second. Pretend you’re a camera. Take a picture of this. Remember this for the rest of your lives,” Lee said.

And there was plenty of new stuff for the youth to remember, like a freshly remodeled and modernized campus. Throughout the summer, construction crews had taken out the portable temporary classrooms that lined the Seventh Avenue side of the school and completely renovated the permanent buildings.

The $10.1 million project was funded by the $531 million Proposition A bond measure that voters passed in 2011, and featured the complete elimination of asphalt blacktop in play areas, which was replaced by a more forgiving acrylic surface.

  

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Lynch elementary schools will lose the 'Lynch' due to racial implications

       

Photo by Eric Apalategui, Special to the Oregonian     

 

The national movement to change racially offensive names of buildings, sports teams and landmarks will soon touch a group of schools in southeast Portland. Lynch Meadows, Lynch Wood and Lynch View elementary schools will shed their "Lynch" before the upcoming school year in response to growing concern about the word's racial connotations.

Janika Chada reports in the Oregonian newspaper that the schools, part of the Centennial School District, were named for the Lynch family, which donated land over a century ago to build the first of the schools. But Centennial Superintendent Paul Coakley says many newer families coming into the district associate the name with America's violent racial history.

   
       
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San Francisco aims to build teachers’ housing

     

Francis Scott Key Annex site in Outer Sunset chosen

        

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee spoke about teacher housing at Francis Scott Key Elementary School as District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang and SF Planning Director John Rahaim listen, during a June 21st meeting. Photo by Thomas K. Pendergast

   

By Thomas K. Pendergast 

 

(Originally published in the July, 2017, issue of the Sunset Beacon newspaper, a community newspaper serving the Sunset District of San Francisco.) 

 

A plan to turn the Francis Scott Key Annex in the Outer Sunset District from a dilapidated surplus school property into new housing for teachers is moving forward, as city officials seek ways to keep educators from leaving for less expensive towns.

District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang and SF Mayor Ed Lee announced that somewhere between 135 and 150 apartments will be built on the property, a 1.25-acre site between 42nd and 43rd avenues, and Irving and Judah streets.

“We do have a housing crisis in the City,” Lee said at a recent community meeting. “We’ve started getting better in building low-income housing, and we certainly use money from market- rate housing, but we never really did anything for working class folks. This is our chance because we have a strong economy now.

“Our affordable housing levels are too low for those who are teachers. Maybe some of our educators in the system can qualify, but most of our teachers make just a little bit more than that. They don’t make enough to afford market rate housing,” Lee said.

     

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