1894 when this monument was built. You know, i know that poland literally rebuilt parts of auschwitz as a museum to tell people to not forget. I mean, my background is jewish. And, you know, my ancestry, i had relatives who were lost during the war. And, you know, i think thats significant. Because i think that if, you know, if we just wipe out that history, i mean, were already seeing some of it in our current Politics Today of, you know, of things that could happen that could, you know, create the path towards the kind of things that happened during world war ii. So, the notion of someone put it very well, the empty base as the symbol is really challenging. Because the empty bases a great symbol, if it had something there to tell why it was a symbol. Because if you take off the sculpture and you take off the words early days and i guess the black will still be there. Again, whoever asked about the landscaping pulled away, i mean hopefully that will happen. If the plaque is still there, maybe, just maybe, someone will stop and read that plaque. But we you know, the idea that this sculpture is going to be put in a crate and then just hidden away for an eternity just seems like, you know, thats what i mean about the path to the future. That were losing a piece this piece is specifically called an allegory. So were losing the allegorical stream of history that specifically addresses what everyone is concerned about. But if we dont haves that there, and the children at the playground and they dont they dont know that it was there, then were celebrating all the rascals. I loved reading about the announcement of the when they were laying the cornerstone of the monument back in the 18 90s and it was controversial then. And it wasnt controversial because of the early days statue. It was controversial because some of the ministers of the churches and ill just quote from this is a speech at the cornerstone, the laying of the cornerstone, in this report it is stated substantially that the dr. Reverend dill had with sweeping dictum denounced the native sons with one interpretation and that is that they were the degenerate desen dans of unworthy sires and they were hoodlums which i thought was great because even in 1894, there were lots of people around who thought that these people shouldnt be celebrated with a monument. And so, you know, im concerned about the idea that and someone did say why dont we take it all down . So in the light of the metoo movement, we have these men theyre all men who were the pioneers of california, who were not nice people. You know . And theres certainly a lot of people like Harvey Weinstein who are being taken down for their actions in their work world that were pretty nasty. So, what happens if a few years from now, enough people get together and say, well, you know, these people mr. Freemont was a pretty bad guy so lets take the piece with him in there out of there because we dont want to celebrate a man like him. So that begs the question. You know, do we just do we just completely remove history . Do we completely, as mr. Levin suggests, find a way at the deyoung somewhere to put this, you know, this story of this so that we can learn how to be better people, we can learn how we became Diverse People and better people over the last 115 years since this monument was built. But we dont have any way of knowing whats going to happen from this point. So i think its also ironic that just an hour or so ago, we looked at the path of a gold light standards which is a landmark in San Francisco and depicted on the base of those light standards the ones that march up Market Street and they are landmark here in San Francisco, depicted is an indian. And part of it is called the winning of the west. And it says timages of the plains indian, not a california. The subject is nude and riding a horse, which is historically inaccurate. In addition, nudity is not a native American Standard in art and it is used in depiction of native americans in the europeanbased concept in art and is considered to be disrespectful by many native American People. It perpetuates that they resemble all native American People in plains culture. Now were about to recreate 238 of these light standards with the same exact depiction of native americans that is inaccurate and is considered disrespectful. So, it is really a challenge. You know, how do we keep history in tact, how do we keep our you know, the things that we think are sake red like these beautiful light poles that march up Market Streets are part of the City Beautiful Movement and at the same time, be respectful . So, i mean, i would vote for having this removed but i really would hope that the Art Commission would make some efforts to figure out that with to do with the pedestal. Because the empty pedestal alone is not enough. I know in some cases there was the desire to put kind of a neting around some of the confederate sculpture that you could actually see through. You could you know, it was like a mesh that you could see through but it would be tied around the base and then there would be a plaque about why it was done that way. So thats another there are other it seems to me there are other options to deal with this problem. But its very disconcerting to me that we look that we take our point of view from 2018 and assume thats the only way of looking at things and we start to, you know, we start to take away our little pieces of history, one by one and then what do we have . We have our own opinion of what today looks like, but not our stream of history about how we got here. So, and that troubles me. Again, im very sympathetic. I would vote for this. But im disconcerted about the Arts Commission, the path to get here and then what happens in the future. Because i suspect that piece of the monument, and maybe we should change its name to the pioneer memorial, but that piece will go into a caitz and go into storage and we will never see it again. It will stay in storage for the rest of all of our lives. And we will have lost an Educational Opportunity rather than gained some knowledge about our diversity. D commissioner johns. I, too, share commissioner pearlmans lack of enthusiasm for the way the report was written. I think that i have serious concerns. I think that we are proposing to do will violate standard one, the property shall be used for historic purpose. Because i dont think it will be in the same way that it has been. Standard two, the historic character of a property shall be retained and be preserved. I believe that the goal here is to not preserve the historic character, but to change it. Standard three says each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place and use. Standard five, distinctive features that characterize a property shall be preserved and standard nine, exterior alterations will not destroy Spatial Relationships that characterize the property. And the property here is the monument itself. So but let me just say that, as to the point that were losing history and this is an important allegory. In the 4th grade in california, you used to study and maybe people still do study, the history of the state of california. And when i was in the 4th grade, my grandfather took me down to this monument. He took me to missions. He took me to another a lot of other places. And he showed me the monument. And he said now, young man, he said i want you to look at this and i want you to understand whats going on. He said you see a missionary, and you see a ficaro and you see an indian. And he said but that is tonight very, very, very shallowist approach. He said what you see here is something thats gone on forever in human history. It is one group taking advantage of an attempt at one group that thinks it knows everything about how life ought to be lived. Treating another group very, very badly. And he said and then you see the vicaro. That is the public. Its just kind of ignoring the tragedy that is going on. Its not just about the early days. It happened, he said, a few years ago if this statue had been built, it woulden have been a priest, it would have been franklin deleanor roosevelt. It and it wouldnt have been an indian, it would have been the native american, it would have been japaneseamerican. And it wouldnt have been a vicaro, it would have been just the general public. If the statue were made today, that young man on the ground would be gay. And there would be a priest and there would be a mormon elders and there would be the evangelical prod protestants and john q. Public looking around. And he said to me, look, you have to realise that what this is telling you is that the horrible things can happen. And have happened in this country. And too often there is an indifferent public and young man, you cant be indifferent. He said and every time you go by this, that is what you have to think about. And so that is how i approached this. Im i dont think that that monument honours the terrible things that happened to native americans. I dont think it celebrates the terrible things that happened. I think it is there to warn us that these terrible things can happen and will happen and that we since we know about them, we can be vigilant. I dont think it is a good idea. Toic that early days thing down and the reason i dont is because we have to confront the bad things that have happened in our history. And i think that we will not be as vigilant. Now i was talking to one of the commissioners earlier about the japaneseamerican response and the japaneseamericans have never denied that this happened to them. Never denied that these things took place. And, in fact, the man essentially sought to have his conviction overturned said to judge patel at the hearing that the reason he was doing this was so that this will never happen again to any american citizen of any race, creed or colour. I dont think its i can understand the passion of the people who spoke here against what they see, how they view this monument. But there is a considerable passion on the other side that says that we cannot ignore the ugliness that was present in the early days. If we simply eliminate that part of the statue, then in effect were saying that didnt happen. Our early days were just a nothing where as we should be saying is from the earliest time in california, we had these problems. We abused other people and we sat around and we watched it be abused and i think that that is very, very bad. Now we are a Historic Preservation commission. Were a historic revision commission. It may be difficult to confront our path, but i think we have to. As far as if people think that there is hateful speech in the world, well i think the way to approach that is to have more speech. Not to suppress the speech that was there. And we could certain there is room in the room over there to have another monument that depicts that whatever it is that the people who feel so strongly could depict, rather what could depict what they feel ought to be said. Im extremely uncomfortable with not only removing it, but based upon what i considered to be a rather shoddy report. Other commissioner, commentses . I would say that i disagree with the commissioner johns, commissioner pearlman. I think that this monument is first of all, its one of the few monuments that it is not like there is thousands of monuments that depict the range of native American History in the city. Both positive and negative. The only ones that are depicted are where native americans are in these kinds of positions where their defeat is celebrated and i dont think the monument shows them in a light that is necessarily sympathetic. Its celebrating their sort of subservients and i think in the context of the civic centre, which is the Historic District, the removal of this monument does not affect the character of the civic centre. Can i just yes. Im in total agreement with you, president wolfram. And im going to plan to vote for the c of a. I do, though, have some concerns about the way in which the Art Commission will view this and will move it forward. I do think that there needs to be some verbage in a plaque to indicate what happened here today or what will be happening about the removal of this particular part of the statue. Its really important in terms of Public Education for people to know that we, as a public body, feel that this is an offensive statue. And its just basic bad public policy. And we need to, in some way, articulate that for people to know so that there will not be a repeat of history and i thank commissioner johns for our previous conversation about the japaneseamericans being forcibly removed from the west coast and being put into detention camps and concentration catchser. We have a day of remembrance every year to remember what happened and it is important for all communities to really recognize and appreciate and educate the whole California Community about what has happened in the past and to just make sure it never happens again. And i think getting rid of this, to make sure that no one ever feels that this is a good thing is a good thing to do. Mr. Frye . I wanted to make a couple of comments about staffs analysis. We do feel, as we do stand behind our analysis and that, you know, in trying to balance not only all the policies and goals and guidelines of the city, using the secretary of interiors standards as sort of the measurement of change within a Historic District, we feel that there is still a responsible and a logical argument in support of removing this portion of the monument in conformance with the standards. As you know, not all standards are required to be met. And some may not apply. However, the standards in or applying the standards here in this lens and looking at their compatibility of their change within the distribution we do feel is still an accurate and logical portrayal of the work at hand. Were happy to answer any questions. But we do feel that the findings do reflect a project that is in conformance with the standards. Thank you. Mr. Pearlman. Yeah. I find that statement very difficult to accept. Only because i totally agree with commissioner wolfram and mr. Frye about the fact that taking this piece off definitely meets the secretary of interior standards relative to the district. But i dont believe it meets the secretary of interior standards relative to the piece itself. It seems like if you had city hall and you said oh, were going to take off the bay at the end on one side and is that ok, well, you know, in terms of spatially, the building is basically the same footprint and you could say it meets the standards for district. But certainly it would affect the building itself, quite substantially. I would agree with you, commissioner. I think the distinction here that staff was trying to draw is that the monument is just a contributing feature to the district. While city hall is also an individual landmark. So, certainly if the monument was individually designated, there may be a lower threshhold for change that could be could meet the standards. But here as one small feature out of a very large district, we felt that those standards had still been met. Ok. And i had one other thing i wanded to ask. Is there any way to put any conditions in a c of a about what commissioner matsuda talked about and what im concerned about, which rather than just leaving this an empty pedestal, is there a condition that we can put on the Art Commission about somehow noting why there is an empty pedestal here. And i dont know what that would look like. But that there is some recognition to the public. Certainly. Of why there is an empty pedestal. Sure. If we wanted to have additional interpretation or ask for conditions. Ok, because that was the one thing i was most concerned about in losing that piece is how strange it would be that people would walk by and wonder whats going on here . Why is it like that . Nothing happened in the early days. Well, thats what commissioner johns is talking about. Nothing happened before this date. [laughter] all right. Commissioner johnck. I move that staff recommendation with the conditions and i would, you know, entertain some further interpretation if we would like to have that. I do think that the empty space is a pointed statement in and of itself. But i do think that it is certainly appropriate and i appreciate your discussion about not the historic revision commission. I dont agree with that. Of course not. But we are we do want to make a strong statement, i believe, in interpreting how we look at alterations, and particularly as in reference to the civic centre and so i think its appropriate in the weight of evidence is compelling that the alteration is appropriate. Thank you. Commissioner johns . Yeah. Thank you. If we could [inaudible]. Some kind of, as commissioner pearlman was saying, some kind of interpretive material or condition that would address that would address why this is removed by the Arts Commission. That would go a long ways towards addressing my concerns. That this not be forgoten. And that the Arts Commission to board of supervisors, those are political organisations. And they can approach this in a way that is very different from the way i think we should approach it. That if there could be interpretive material that took care of some of these concerns, then i would feel a great deal better about it. Thank you. Commissioner hyland and i think we have a motion here and i guess well let commissioner hyland go to see if we have a second. I wont take too long. I do support the removal of the monument, but i do not think its enough. I do think that we should add a condition to, and if we could make a friendly amendment to your motion to add a plaque detailing why it was removed. Mmhmm. So i would second that motion, if youd accept that. Yep. Ill accept the amendment. Sdo k we have a motion and a second . And no discussion as to where the removed statue would be stored or how it would be treated after its removed. No, that is already in the condition the motion in the our motion that we have includes all that detail. Oh, very god. Its in there. Packaging it up into storage ok. Its a place that it could go into the museum, that would be indian jones. Very good. Commissioners, then there is a motion that has been seconded. With an amendment. To approve the certificate of appropriateness with conditions a