phil ginsberg. (applause) >> illustrious? thank you, john. illustrious? it's a great day for parks and for park users. so, we're thrilled. we get to be the beneficiaries of all this hard work and all this partnership. and it is appropriate that we're here at balboa park. mark, john, and the mayor all talked about the improvements that have happened in this really, really important piece of open space. it's a dense neighborhoodv. it's in a transit corridor. and thanks to partnership and thanks to community support and thanks to the leadership of our elected officials we've 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 public-private 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 state-of-the-art swimming pool in a few years. the theme here is meeting evolving community needs.

we're 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 we'll be ahead and leading by example. so, i would like to introduce alex turk from sf city. (applause) >> thank you, mark. thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. you know, every issue needs a champion and there's no doubt that when supervisor farrell approached me a year ago and sf city, he had conviction and he had purpose around getting this done and succeeding where others had failed. and also had an idea about crawling before you walk, about finding a way that we could create access throughout the 11 supervisorial districts, throughout different socioeconomic communities in san francisco, providing opportunity. and it was something where he had said hello. it meets the mission of sf city which is essentially to engage our member companies in innovative solutions, historic problems facin

ginsberg for some months now. but in addition to the information that you can now get about where our parks are, i think we need to take this one step further. we need to allow folks to do the online transactions that allow people to make reservations at the barbecue pit or at that picnic table. these are three of hundreds of ideas that i have heard over the last few years. my guess is you in your heads have the solutions to them today. and mayor lee and i are looking forward with this legislation with all of you to figuring out how to make our city government the best 21st century city government that we have in the entire world. so, thank you for being here, and it is my pleasure to introduce our mayor's budget director kate howard who in addition to helping to balance multi-billion dollar budgets every year, she will tell you about our plans around our chief data officer. thank you so much for being here. (applause) >> good morning, everyone. i'm kate howard. i'm the mayor's budget director. i'm here to just to

phil ginsberg. (applause) >> it is a real pleasure to be with everyone here today. it takes a village and the village is out. it's not often we get to say the words "our tax dollars at work" with a smile on our face. but we're doing it today. because voters really knew what they were doing a few years back when we passed that $185 million parks bond, neighborhood parks bond and the $10 million invested into lafayette park. i used to live at hyde and geary my first four years when i moved to san francisco, now 36 years ago, and this was my neighborhood park. and i've loved it ever since. the combination of the palms and the pines and everything in between, this is a jewel of a park. and when i saw the fences go up i got a little nervous because, well, it was going to be closed for a while. and i saw on some of the signs that some trees were going to come down which always makes me a little uncomfortable. but now seeing the result, it is magnificent. and, so, i want to thank all the folks who have inv

here now is former white house middle east policy adviser, ambassador mark ginsberg. he's using phrases like a shot across the bow as though that's going to convince the assad regime if they stay in place not to do this again. let me ask you this directly. suppose we have a few shots across 9 bow. suppose it takes two or three days. what's to say he won't use them again? they'll still be there, and the military will still be there. >> i wrote about that very question that you just asked in the huffington post today. look, no one, not the president, not god, knows what assad and the clique around him will do. how many cruise missile attacks will it take him to deter and accomplish the president's very limited goals here of in effect degrading his willingness to use chemical weapons against? i don't know the answer to that. i'm not suggesting that anyone knows the answer to that. would it be 20 salvos? 30? 50? the bottom line is the following -- the president made it clear in his limited goals and object 'tis that he wants to, one, punish assad that has clearly been bas

. >>> a supreme court justice ruth bader ginsberg will make history today.he will become the first supreme court member to conduct a same-sex marriage ceremony at the wedding of a close friend. ginsberg says that she thinks that none of the supreme court justices have been asked to officiate before for fear it could compromise their opinion on the issue when it comes before the court. the ceremony is planned for september. >>> still ahead on "today in the bay" breakfast is the most important meal of the day for young kids, but how do you get them to eat it? coming up, healthy options, and also show you how eating breakfast could actually raise money for your child's school. >>> here's how the morning starting off around the san mateo bridge this morning. you see the patchy low clouds and sunshine and interesting changes ahead for the labor day weekend forecast. we will take a look at that when we come right back. ♪ ♪ turn around ♪ every now and then i get a little bit hungry ♪ ♪ and there's nothing good for me around ♪ ♪ turn around ♪ every now and then i ge

supreme court justice ruth baiter ginsberg will make history. she'll be the first supreme court justice to conduct the same sex marriage at a wedding of her friend. she thinks none were asked to officiate before because it might complicate things if an issue came before the court. >>> now a nbc bay area follow up. california can keep its ban on the sale of fogg wau. the less lature found force-feeding ducks to be cruel. they plan on appealing that ruling. >>> in health matters, are you depressed? a glass of wine may take care of that. people over the age of 55 who had two to seven glasses of wean a week were less depressed than their non-drinking peers. compounds in wine may protect certain parts. brain. >>> since the time of the gold rush, marshlands have been filled in or developed. they are trying to restore marshes in between napa and sonoma. nbc joe risotto junior has the story. >> reporter: the fields are alive with this year's grapes. but among the vines is an area so dead that nothing can live on it. >> when the salt gets here it's so co

. >> joining us now, mark ginsberg, a former u.s.bassador, now serves as president of lavalina arab production pchz ambassador, if this turns out to genuinely be a chemical attack perpetrated by the bashar al assad regime, does the u.s. have any other choice or i suppose we should say the u.s. and the world but to take some sort of military action. >> first of an all, there's a u.n. team already on the ground that has to verify this. i accept the opposition while the pictures are agonizing for someone like me who has been following this day in and day out, we have a right to know who is responsible because of all of the actors that are at play. but let's go to the president's posture in his interview which i watched very carefully. mr. president, i would say stop agonizing. okay? the worst thing to be appearing is to be pushes against your will to take actions inconsistent with your goals and objectives. between your not wanting to do anything and between putting boots on the ground, i could drive a truck through. here's what i would

. >> other people who got that aba award, included supreme court justices, ruth ginsberg. >> larry ellison thinks apple is in trouble. >> kpix5's sharon chin tells us why he thinks the company is lost. >> he was brilliant. he was our edison. he was our picasso. so what happens to apple without steve? >> well, we already know. >> what? >> we saw -- we conducted the experiment. it's been done. we saw apple with steve jobs. we saw apple without steve jobs. we saw apple with steve jobs. now, we are going to see apple without steve jobs. >> so you are shorting apple? >> i liked him. >> apple computers. >> days before the premier of jobs, depicting the rise and fall of apple's cofounder, tells charlie rose that the company and current ceo lost its core when it lost jobs, his best friend of 25 years. >> i'll say it publicly. he is irreplaceable. i don't see how they can -- they will not be nearly so successful because he is gone. >> technology analyst, rob, says ellison is right about apple's leadership today. >> being perceived as leelders. >> apple has been on the defensive over mapping problem

let's discuss this further with former ambassador mark ginsberg and harry labelle. mr.mbassador, let me start with you np attack that's coming is so pre-ordained, so advertised and so limited we've been told already by the white house. would you recommend this methodology to go forward from we're it comes to trying to do anything in syria? >> well, michele, it's almost as all of us are sitting as arm chair video experts targeting syria. it's gone to the point where almost everybody has an idea of what we'll shoot at and what we'll use to shoot. the bottom line is the following. the most important aspect of this is going to be whether or not any attack serves two purposes. one to degrade the capacity of the assad regime to use chemical weapons in the future. and to deter them from being able to do that and degrade ultimately the command and control operation. if these minimal attacks that the white house is billing as potential don't accomplish either goal then there's going lot of criticism here and abroad. >> do you think they can? it's been telegraphed so clearly we d

so, that led me to phil ginsberg who is very enthusiastic and he arranged the tour for me to look around all their wonderful sites. and it was kesar triangle that really took my heart. so, there was something about it, it's kind of under loved and a little scrappy, didn't seem to interrupt any activities that were going on. what i really love was that you could not only experience maybe something artful on the ground, but it is as well when you drive by, maybe there was some way you could catch people's imagination. ~ as well when you're up in csf looking down there is an aerial view from [speaker not understood] hill. and i love that. fortunately, i met sam bower. he's been invaluable. together we saw this whole little park should be treated as art, and we have, you know, seen that it needs to be healed and kind of brought back to life. and, so, i hope that this project can in some way be an example or a precedent that other people could, you know, who are park lovers and donors, that they could focus on one spot and the thought they could partner with rec and park and bring it to its m

lastly, coming up on august 21st at the random museum, our general manager phil ginsberg will be chuck of the san francisco chronicle to discuss how rec and park is using innovations and partnerships to ensure access to open space as well as how groundbreaking youth education programs are training the next generation of environmental stewards. this interview will be included in the commonwealth club of california's nature 2.0 series. that concludes my portion of the general manager's report. i didn't see if linda is out there if there is a prozac report this time or not. >> [speaker not understood]. >> okay. so, we'll dispense with the prozac report and with that and turn it over to our videographer jamie hopper who will show you yet another month in rec and park. >> [speaker not understood]. powerpoint. powerpoint. ♪ >> it's been a labor of love and we're proud to be providing this gift to the city [speaker not understood] organizations and individuals. and to the city of -- or to the children of san francisco. and i'm very proud that our neighborhood finally has a playground to call