Farrell, for saving me time and accelerating the effort because with thanks to the leadership of the past few years and the generosity of google, i think we have we can jump start this whole process and deliver results fast in ways that will hopefully make you forget the past. I also want to acknowledge a couple of the [speaker not understood]. Mike mccarthy and joseph john. Were going to be partnering with sf city and Phil Ginsberg, margo and all the people that have been involved in this to make it a resounding success. And i think that mayor lee, it by this Time Next Year when you look back, i would say that we will not be in the past any more, mayor lee. I think well be ahead and leading by example. So, i would like to introduce alex turk from sf city. applause thank you, mark. Thank you. Its a pleasure to be here. You know, every issue needs a champion and theres no doubt that when supervisor farrell approached me a year ago and sf city, he had conviction and he had purpose around
Mark, john, and the mayor all talked about the improvements that have happened in this really, really important piece of open space. Its a dense neighborhoodv. Its in a transit corridor. And thanks to partnership and thanks to Community Support and thanks to the leadership of our elected officials weve made some incredible improvements here in the last few years. Behind us, our new playground thanks to the support of the trust for public land. Behind all of you is an incredible new Skateboard Park which is both a public another Publicprivate Partnership partially funded with bond funds. Behind us even further is balboa pool which thanks to the 2012 parks bond will be renovated with a stateoftheart Swimming Pool in a few years. The theme here is meeting evolving community needs. Skateboarding has become more popular. The needs of our aquatics programs is changing. The needs of our playground is evolving and so, too, is technology. Technology has a very important place in park and park s
Discretionary funding has often gone in to support efforts here and, of course, across the street with the challenges of the both the bart and the muni station. But it is all about our neighborhoods. And i go back to what supervisor farrell said, and i want to again thank and appreciate supervisor farrell, his staff margo kelly, another great effort. This is what innovation does in the city. It gets everybody to actually work at even higher levels in government in a Publicprivate Partnership with Companies Like google and all the rest of the wonderful members of sf city to do what we can do and to do more than we think we can. In order to bring benefits, bring equity, bridge not only the Digital Divide, but perhaps bring the whole innovative spirit to every community in San Francisco. This is what i think this wifi effort of our 31 parks is saying. And the nice thing about it is that when you study what were going to do here and accomplish with the 31 parks, and that we along with our
Reflected in increase to the general fund. It could be healthy relationship with Business Community to help us maintain that. Yes. [speaker not understood]. Well, i think google is happy to do this for the reasons already touted. They agree with us that wifi in our parks is a very important, very notable, very honorable goal to accomplish. They stepped up as a member of sf city. Part of a whole group of Technology Partners that want to help our city improve our services. And i think that when Companies Step that up, just like other companies have done where they lend their employees to sweep our streets, to pick up trash, to help with the Arts Community improve along midmarket, theyre all saying they want to be great partners in the city that accompanies, as companies that employ our residents, they just want to be great partners. And i think that thats a worthy, worthy spirit and goal. It is what i consider to be one of the finest spirits of San Francisco being part of this Incredible
Good effort. Its a good project to be able to do that, especially that we have no strings attached, that this is a gift thats actually coming to residents in San Francisco that has a benefit that maximizes the benefit to residents. Im really glad that we have that, private project moving across the city and this park. So, i just want to thank supervisor mark farrell for his great work. Its been a really good couple months for me working with him on the budget and seeing this project come into fruition, to know that he presents some really great leadership here in San Francisco. And more to come im sure. Thank you for being here. Im actually going to be introducing our illustrious general manager of the rec and park department, mr. Phil ginsberg. applause illustrious . Thank you, john. Illustrious . Its a great day for parks and for park users. So, were thrilled. We get to be the beneficiaries of all this hard work and all this partnership. And it is appropriate that were here at balboa