Presidio Historical Association President’s Report, submitted by Lucia Bogatay, July 2020
The virus has sapped our ambitions a bit. But here is what has happened since my last report, which was in May.
The Board: With sadness we accepted the resignation of Bob Meyer who is staying in Rhode Island for the present. We will miss his enthusiasm and faithfulness. We now will need to elect a new secretary.
Advocacy: The Trust has announced staffing cuts which eliminates the historian, the archaeologist, interpretation, and the volunteer docents . We have a letter in preparation to the Trust which we will discuss at this meeting.
The Programmatic Agreement for the Main Post expires soon, and the Trust is planning to renew it for another 10 years without any changes to the MPU or the PA document. We will write something to go on record (again) that these documents are both out of date and should be replaced.
Our hope is to supply some of the voids the Trust downsizing changes have made. To that end Paul and I had a useful conversation with Barbara Sokolov, former Trust historian. She will proceed to prepare a proposal for oral histories of three members of the PHA and Dr. Jack McAninch, a Letterman doctor.
We also considered whether we should reevaluate signing the Main Post PA. To that end I spoke with Rob Thomson and concluded that we should not sign it. The Trust will most likely not be doing any dramatic undertakings any time soon, and the PA that we refused to sign 8 years ago is still in force, and now is obsolete.
We are monitoring the controversy over the murals UCSF plans to demolish. Bob Cherny will let us know if we need to provide a letter and to whom. But the family is in negotiations (to save them and acquire them), and the City of S. F. is about to make them landmarks.
Publications: Bob Cherny has written a new article for the Communique, and I need other articles or ideas to complete the issue. I will provide my usual Presidient’s letter.
Events: Besides Samantha’s book recommendations and interesting links we are planning to have Barbara Sokolov organize us an actual book club with meetings. In the meantime, she has started one for the general public which you can see on her website, The Joy of History (https://www.thejoyofhistory.com/current-series). Ours will be similar, but cheaper. We hope to have a virtual talk on the War in Laos by Greg Thomas and his bride Keo. This will be scheduled after they return from a 10-week tour of the West in an RV. We need to suggest some dates for them, probably in September. The schedule is wide open, as of now!