Holly Near Urges SF Mayor Lee To Save Bernal Heights Mural While D. Campos Violates Rules

Holly Near Urges SF Mayor Lee To Save Bernal Heights Mural While Harvard Educated SF Supervisor David Campos Censured For Violating Sunshine & Manipulating Document Info At Library

" Unlawfully Redacting Contact Information"

Singer Holly Near Asks S.F. Mayor Ed Lee

to Save Bernal Library Mural

--Asks to Not Erase "our positive history,

our images of cooperation and caring."




Library Users Association

P.O. Box 170544, San Francisco, CA 94117-0544



PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Peter Warfield

April 5, 2012 Tel./Fax: (415) 753-2180

Singer Holly Near Asks S.F. Mayor Ed Lee

to Save Bernal Library Mural

--Asks to Not Erase "our positive history,

our images of cooperation and caring."

San Francisco, April 5, 2012-- Singer Holly Near, whose name and words were painted in large letters on the front of the Bernal Heights Branch Library mural thirty years ago and remain there today, wrote a letter to Mayor Ed Lee urging him not to allow the mural to be destroyed.

Sending her letter to the mayor by email April 3, 2012, Ms. Near wrote the following:

"Victor Jara, depicted in the mural, was an artist who contributed greatly to our understanding of the power of music in the face of terror. Do we not need this reminder now more than ever? As we experience ongoing violence among genders, races, and cultures, is this not the time to have the valiant efforts of working women reflected back to us in the spirit of courage and hope?”

Ms. Near sent copies of the letter to the Arts Commission, the San Francisco Public Library which owns the mural and the library on which it was painted, the Board of Supervisors, and to Library Users Association which has been working to preserve and refresh the mural rather than have it painted over and replaced.

Many others have also written letters of support for the mural recently.

Nadine May wrote:

"I was born and raised in San Francisco, and ... I was in the area when the murals were created and I remember the excitement in the neighborhood, and especially in the Latino Community, and particularly of those Chileans who had been forced into exile by the Pinochet dictatorship and whose new homes were in San Francisco.

May continued, "Victor Jara is a hero of mine. His name is known throughout Latin America, indeed throughout the world. He was a man who spoke out ‐‐ peacefully but forcefully, through word and through song, for the people of Chile, the people of Latin America, indeed anyone who was oppressed anywhere. His hands were broken by Pinochet's soldiers, he was killed by them, and yet the words of his songs live on in the hearts of millions of people.

"This mural is incredibly important, not only for historic reasons, but for cultural ones. To destroy it would be to destroy a part of the history of Bernal Heights, the Mission, indeed the history of many in the activist community in San Francisco. We need those strong depictions of people like Victor Jara, of strong working women, of people who were important in the history of the Bernal Heights neighborhood.

"Please allow the murals to stay in place, and allocate funds for their restoration, rather than destroying them. Thank you."

Another letter sent to the Arts Commission just prior to its vote April 2 came from Rosemarie Picone. She wrote that destruction of this mural would jeopardize San Francisco's international status as "a major center dedicated to honoring and preserving the work of internationally recognized muralists past and present.... Your support and vote for preservation and restoration of this mural is critical to this City's history."

The Arts Commission approved removal of the existing mural on a unanimous vote April 2, 2012, despite vigorous opposition expressed by members of the public at the meeting and in numerous letters sent to the Commission. The action followed a Library Commission vote on July 21, 2011 to approve replacement of the mural.


Library Users Association

P.O. Box 170544, San Francisco, CA 94117-0544



PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Peter Warfield

April 5, 2012 Tel./Fax: (415) 753-2180

Unanimous SOTF Vote--

Sup. David Campos Violated Open Government Law

By Unlawfully Redacting Contact Information

From File of Bernal Mural-Related Correspondence

-- Complaint Filed by Library Users Association

San Francisco, April 5, 2012 -- Library Users Association won its complaint against Supervisor David Campos last night as the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force (SOTF), the city's official open government watchdog group, determined that the Supervisor's office had unlawfully redacted information from documents it provided at the request of the Association.

The requested documents were related to the fate of the mural on Bernal Heights Branch Library, which is a community-created multi-cultural mural painted in 1980-1982, featuring Victor Jara, Holly Near, working women, and the history of Bernal Heights.

The vote was unanimous: 6-0.

Also by the same unanimous vote, the SOTF found that Supervisor Campos violated the Sunshine Ordinance by not providing the requested information within the time limit prescribed by law. The office should have responded by the end of the next business day to a request for information from Library Users Association October 27, 2011. Instead, it replied 10 days later and after multiple follow-up reminders had been sent.

Peter Warfield, Executive Director of Library Users Association, said "This ruling adds further weight to our contention that the so-called community process that the Supervisor set up, ostensibly to resolve the, dispute over the mural's fate, was in fact a secretive process that fundamentally excluded the public. Our attempt to understand how the process worked was obstructed by Supervisor Campos's massive redactions from the mural file that he gave us, after making us wait for a response ten times longer than permitted by law."

Under San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance, a response to an Immediate Disclosure Request must be provided by the end of the next business day, which may, if necessary, call for an extension of time to provide documents that are voluminous or hard to find.

Supervisor Campos's office argued that the redactions were made to keep personal contact information private, and were justified by the general language of the California constitution. Hilary Ronen, a Campos aide speaking for the supervisor at the hearing, added that the redactions represented "a safety issue for our constituents." Task Force member Rick Knee responded that the Task Force had found in the past that "the default is openness." Chair Hope Johnson said she could find no support for the redactions in the California Public Records Act (CPRA).

Mr. Warfield said, "The massive number of redactions included portions that were so short they could only be names, not email addresses, and these were found typically in address fields. The redactions also included email addresses and other contact information -- making a secret out of many who were present at meetings or who sent and received emails about decision-making."

Mr. Warfield added, "This was about withholding information concerning the process of decision-making about a public issue and a public asset on a public property. Even the contact information for the mediator selected by Supervisor Campos and the Project Manager for the group were redacted. And Mauricio Vela's contact information was blacked out, even though he was a publicly known neighborhood activist – who strongly favored restoration of the mural -- and even though he had died more than a year before we made the request."

Ray Hartz, Director of San Francisco Open Government, has filed a separate complaint against Supervisor Campos that is pending a hearing before the SOTF. Mr. Hartz, commenting after the meeting, said "Supervisor Campos set up a quote community process unquote that was designed specifically to evade every open government law on the books."

Mr. Warfield noted that the information request made by Library Users Association "was intended to understand how that so-called community process had moved forward -- and who was involved is an integral part of the answer. Supervisor Campos's redactions have obstructed that simple purpose to understand. It also prevented our contacting potential allies who had written the supervisor supporting mural preservation, as well as anyone whose contact information was redacted -- to inquire about the process or to provide input."