Executive, Community Investments
At Large

Born and raised in San Francisco, Roberto Ordeñana has worked in community development and social justice for over 20 years, centering the arts in much of this work. Roberto currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center that provides: direct services to some of the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community, arts and culture programs celebrating our community’s vibrancy and movement building opportunities - all together creating a stronger and healthier LGBTQ and allied community. Over the years, Roberto has managed innovative programming that provided emerging artists opportunities to show their work, served homeless and marginally housed LGBTQ youth, and provided health and wellness programs to LGBTQ adults. Prior to working at the Center, while at the STOP AIDS Project, he managed peer-led youth HIV-prevention programs which included experimental documentary-making and community-organizing projects. Roberto has served on the LGBT Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and as president of the Board of Directors at Bay Area Young Positives. Roberto is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University where he majored in Social Sciences – with an emphasis in Human Sexuality Studies. In 2012, Roberto was appointed by Mayor Edwin M. Lee to serve as City Commissioner on the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Civic Design Review

Architecture

Yakuh Askew, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, born and raised in San Francisco, earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. In 2004 he founded Y.A. studio, an architectural practice located in San Francisco’s Mission District, to focus on socially and environmentally responsible architectural design. Under his leadership, Y.A. studio has developed an expansive portfolio that includes private homes, multi-family developments, 100% affordable housing developments, offices, cafes, restaurants, and bars.

Yakuh is a member of the Lick-Wilmerding High School Board of Trustees where he chairs the Campus Stewardship Committee and is a member of the USF Architecture and Community Design Advisory Board.

Executive, Community Investments
At Large

Charles M. Collins is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the YMCA of San Francisco. The YMCA offers dozens of programs and services for over 183,000 children and adults in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties. Mr. Collins was appointed chair of the Mayor’s Physical Activities Council by Mayor Gavin Newsom; he is currently co-chair of Shape Up SF, and a member of the National Public Policy Committee of the YMCA of the USA. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the California State Alliance of YMCAs.

From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Collins served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Family Service Agency of San Francisco (FSA/SF). From 1983 to 2002, Mr. Collins was President and Chairman of WDG Ventures, Inc., and its affiliated companies which are engaged in the investment and development of commercial and residential real estate. In February 2012, Mr. Collins was appointed by Mayor Edwin Lee to the San Francisco Arts Commission. He is Chairman Emeritus of the San Francisco Art Institute and former Senior Vice Chairman of the National Urban League. He is a board member of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he serves on the Executive Committee and chairs the Governance Committee.

Mr. Collins received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Williams College, his Master of City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Juris Doctor from the Harvard Law School.

Civic Design Review Committee
At Large

Mary Jung is currently the Executive Director of the San Francisco Association of Realtors Foundation and helped to found the Welcome Home Project, which is dedicated to providing services to homeless families and individuals as they transition to permanent housing. The Project currently helps approximately 30 homeless families a month settle into their homes with new housewares.

Mary Jung has been in and out of politics for most of her adult life, and has interspersed her political work with community activism and volunteer work for nonprofits that serve women, children, and people of color. She was also a member of the San Francisco Civil Service Commission and the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Mary Jung worked for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission as Commission Secretary from 2001 to 2006, and the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Community Development and Housing as Administration Manager from 1997 to 2001.

She has recently served as Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and has been on the Democratic County Central Committee since 2000. She serves on the executive board of the California Democratic Party, and as a board member of the Asian Pacific Democratic Club and Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition.

Community Investments Committee
At Large

Linda Parker Pennington was appointed to the Arts Commission by Mayor London Breed. She is the Founder and CEO of Parker Pennington Enterprises, LLC, a San Francisco-based firm providing talent management, organizational consulting and executive coaching to corporations, start-ups and non-profits. Ms. Parker Pennington has held leadership roles with Citibank, Apple, IBM, Goodwill San Francisco and most recently Google, where she served as Global Director for Talent Management.  Her consulting clients have included organizations as diverse as Kaiser Permanente, Stanford University, the Tides Center, Cisco, Kana Software, PayPal, Genentech and several emerging technology companies. She is a facilitator in the Interpersonal Dynamics program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Ms. Parker Pennington is a dedicated advocate for making art accessible to the community, having served as Board Chair for the Jazz Heritage Center in the Fillmore, a consultant to the Bayview Opera House and an Advisor to numerous arts organizations, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, the African American Arts and Culture Complex and AfroSolo. She has served as a Trustee for the World Affairs Council of Northern California, and as Treasurer for the Friends of the Commission on the Status for Women. Her teenage son is a film student at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. 

Ms. Parker Pennington received her Bachelors with Honors from Boston University, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Community Investments and Street Artists Committees
Performing Arts (Music)

Marcus Anthony Shelby is an accomplished teacher, composer, arranger, and bassist who currently lives in San Francisco, California. Over the past 20 years, he has built a diverse biography. From 1990-1996, Shelby was bandleader of Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! Recording Artists Black/Note and is currently the Artistic Director and leader of The Marcus Shelby Orchestra, The Marcus Shelby Hot 7, and the The Marcus Shelby Trio. Mr. Shelby was awarded a 2009 Black Metropolis Research Consortium Fellowship in Chicago for summer 2009 to conduct research for his commission to compose “Soul of the Movement.” He was also a 2006 Fellow in the Resident Dialogues Program of the Committee for Black Performing Arts at Stanford University to conduct research for his commission to compose “Harriet Tubman.” Mr. Shelby also has had the honor of arranging for and conducting the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Ledisi, performing and recording with Tom Waits, and receiving the City Flight Magazine 2005 award as one of the “Top Ten Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area.” As the 1991 winner of the Charles Mingus Scholarship, Mr. Shelby’s studies include work under the tutelage of composer James Newton and legendary bassist Charlie Haden. He is also very active in music education and currently teaches at Rooftop Alternative School in San Francisco, and at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University.

Civic Design Review, Executive, Visual Arts Committees

Debra Walker is an artist and an arts and housing policy advisor who’s lived and worked in San Francisco since 1981, in one of the City’s oldest artist cooperatives. She came to San Francisco to focus on her painting from a thirty year career in arts, business and production management in publishing, advertising and technology. She has project managed and curated  several projects for Google X, Google and several independent film production companies, and has exhibited her work locally, nationally and internationally.  

Walker served as the tenant representative on the Building Inspection Commission from 1999 – 2019, working to institutionalize the code enforcement outreach program in the housing division by convening tenant and landlord outreach organizations to support building owners in bringing their units up to code. She served on the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety that resulted in an international model for resiliency. Walker is a solution-focused leader who prioritized ensuring San Francisco’s housing inventory remains strong and safe. 

Walker has organized for many political campaigns locally, as well as throughout California and around the country to increase voter registration and to support candidates for office.  She is past president of both the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and the San Francisco Arts Democratic Club.  She has run for supervisor in SF, and has served as a caucus officer in the Women’s Caucus and the LGBT Caucus of the California Democratic Party. She is a past board member of San Francisco Planning and Urban Research center, and chaired both the Live Work and Arts Task forces created by the SF Board of Supervisors.