The mayor of San Francisco’s parks

In his 13-year tenure as common supervisor of San Francisco’s Division of Recreation and Parks, Ginsburg has presided over probably the most transformative intervals within the world-famous park system’s historical past. Leveraging greater than half a billion {dollars} from three park bonds, Ginsburg’s Rec and Park has launched into over 100 main renovations and opened a number of new parks, from Francisco Park in Russian Hill to In Chan Kaajal Park within the Mission, making San Francisco the primary large metropolis within the nation to have a park inside a 10-minute stroll of each resident’s residence. Ginsburg has additionally positioned a higher emphasis on large-scale occasions like Exterior Lands and non permanent installations, like “Monumental Reckoning,” which surrounds the plinth not too long ago vacated by Francis Scott Key within the Music Concourse.

“It’s a well-oiled machine, and you’ll see that by the standard of the expertise you’ve gotten once you go to a park,” mentioned Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Safety Company and Ginsburg’s speedy predecessor as head of Rec and Park. “It simply feels prefer it’s working.”

For San Francisco residents having fun with the brand new services at Dolores Park, Civic Middle Plaza or the Golden Gate Park Tennis Middle, the proof is within the wholesome lawns, clear bogs and near-constant programming. Through the pandemic, specifically, the park system confirmed its true worth, offering protected, communal gathering locations and providing a dose of sanity to the stir-crazy. Now that The Metropolis has reopened, its new and spiffed up parks have emerged as considered one of its biggest vacationer attracts, rounding out the listing of sights in a latest New York Instances journey dispatch. For all who dwell in, work in and go to San Francisco, the parks are a relentless refutation of the narrative that it is a “failed metropolis.”

However the parks, and Ginsburg himself, are hardly immune from The Metropolis’s tough and tumble politics. Ginsburg’s ability at leveraging philanthropic donations for park enhancements — totaling practically $200 million over the course of his tenure — has drawn suspicion from ethics reformers hoping to tamp down on Metropolis Corridor corruption. His efforts to generate new income streams for the park system by allowing extra distributors and occasions have lengthy irked lefties who accuse him of making an attempt to “privatize the parks.” And plenty of of his greatest, boldest initiatives, from the turf soccer discipline program, to the Ferris wheel in Golden Gate Park to the closure of JFK Drive, have reliably introduced out a refrain of detractors. The marathon runner’s aggressive spirit and generally brash private model haven’t all the time helped defuse tensions, both.

From Ginsburg’s perspective, the end line remains to be miles away. His most vital undertaking, the 64-acre park community at India Basin that he calls the Bayview’s “Chrissy Area second,” is simply simply getting began.

“I’d love for my workforce’s legacy to be investing within the southern waterfront,” Ginsburg mentioned. “Alternatives just like the one introduced by India Basin come alongside to cities as soon as in generations, and we have to do it proper.”

Large footwear to fillIrrespective of his aspirations, Ginsburg will most likely all the time stay Rec and Park’s second-longest serving chief. He’s bested by John McLaren, one of many founders of the park system, who led the division for 56 years.

McLaren, it seems, didn’t like statues both. Whereas a life-size bronze statue of the horticulturalist inspecting a pinecone was forged in 1911, it wasn’t put in in Golden Gate Park’s Rhododendron Dell till after his dying in 1945. To keep away from offending the deceased an excessive amount of, the statue was constructed with out a pedestal, leaving McLaren’s ft firmly planted within the filth.

“I hear this man’s voice in my head day-after-day,” Ginsburg mentioned as he sidled as much as McLaren’s facet for a photograph op. “‘Don’t screw it up.’”

From his youth in Philadelphia, Ginsburg has all the time liked the outside, however he by no means anticipated he would head up an enormous metropolis park system. After shifting to San Francisco to attend UC Hastings, he went into labor legislation, first representing public sector unions after which representing The Metropolis in labor negotiations within the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace.

Within the mid-2000s, Ginsburg led San Francisco’s Division of Human Assets, the place he carried out the seek for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s new chief of employees. On the finish of the search, Newsom went with Ginsburg himself. A few of his accomplishments from his time within the mayor’s workplace, like main the negotiations for the Saturday closures of JFK Drive, and crafting the preliminary Exterior Lands settlement, would change into invaluable experiences for his subsequent gig. In his private life, too, Ginsburg has lengthy had a deep attachment to the parks, via lengthy runs together with his spouse and fellow marathon runner, Emily, and numerous hours of soccer follow and summer season camps for his two daughters.

When Newsom tapped Ginsburg to guide Rec and Park in 2009, his most vital mission was to hold out the initiatives funded by the $185 million park bond voters authorised the earlier yr. Issues moved slowly at first. By 2011, park bond initiatives had been delayed over a yr on common, as a result of intensive group outreach and environmental impression experiences. The general public’s religion within the division, and Ginsburg, would decide whether or not it may efficiently elevate one other $195 million in a 2012 bond measure referred to as Proposition B.

Some progressive teams, together with the native Sierra Membership chapter, the League of Pissed Off Voters and the San Francisco Tenants Union, joined fiscal conservatives in opposition to the measure. Their considerations included the division charging admission for non-residents on the Arboretum, the plan so as to add synthetic turf and lights to the Seaside Chalet soccer fields and the cancellation of free occasions just like the Energy to the Peaceable competition. Some activists fearful about Rec and Park changing into extra like an “enterprise company” — a financially self-sustaining group just like the airport or the Presidio Belief — by growing industrial exercise within the parks. Ginsburg’s shut ties to Newsom and the average wing of San Francisco politics naturally put him at odds with progressive leaders like Aaron Peskin and Matt Gonzalez, who each opposed the bond.

Ultimately, voters authorised Proposition B with 72% of the vote, and it was off to the races for Ginsburg and Rec and Park. The division would rating two extra wins on the poll field within the ensuing years. The primary, in 2016, supplied a baseline common fund allocation for Rec and Park, permitting the division to start chipping away at an estimated $1 billion in deferred upkeep. Then in 2020, Rec and Park bought an enormous piece of a profitable inexpensive housing and parks bond.

These funds have enabled park renovations throughout The Metropolis, from small inner-city oases like Boeddeker Park within the Tenderloin and Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Park in Chinatown, to the rec facilities in Glen Park and the Sundown District. The Let’s Play SF Initiative, made attainable by a $13 million philanthropic marketing campaign from the Parks Alliance, has resulted within the renovation of 9 extra playgrounds, with 4 extra anticipated to be full by the top of 2023.

Past bettering the bodily property of the park system, Ginsburg has additionally sought to extend the quantity and kind of actions that occur there. Civic Middle Plaza and the Stanyan Edge the place Haight Road meets Golden Gate Park had been outfitted with cafes and improved lighting, which Ginsburg credit with bettering security. The once-dormant Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in McLaren Park, recent off of a renovation, now hosts an everyday roster of free concert events and performances, offering some sunny competitors to frigid Stern Grove.

“Parks usually are not simply onerous infrastructure, however they’re additionally social infrastructure,” Ginsburg mentioned. “Nice cities facilitate distinctive, particular moments, whether or not it’s meals in parks or music in parks.”

In some ways, the celebs aligned for Ginsburg. Following an organizational shakeup in the beginning of Ginsburg’s tenure, the Parks Alliance went from being one thing of a important watchdog group to a detailed companion of Rec and Park. And since 2010, Mark Buell, a dependable Ginsburg ally, has served as president of the Parks Fee, the group that oversees Rec and Park. For the primary time in a very long time, the division, the fee and the alliance have all been on roughly the identical web page.

Rec and Park’s roughly 1,000 full-time employees members have additionally been instrumental within the park system’s comeback. “All of our accomplishments have been team-oriented,” Ginsburg mentioned. “Throughout COVID, when parks had been tremendous vital and numerous establishments principally locked their doorways, we had been open. Our custodians, our gardeners, our rec employees, our park rangers — all people confirmed up each single day.”

Efforts that predated Ginsburg’s tenure helped set in movement the virtuous cycle of park enhancements and public assist. Daybreak Kamalanathan, at present head of services for San Francisco Unified College District, served as Rec and Park’s director of planning and capital administration from 2006 to 2018, the place she helped lay the groundwork for the 2008 bond measure. “The bond handed, the accountability measures ensured all initiatives had been delivered, and that success elevated confidence and optimism about Rec & Park’s means to ship,” Kamalanathan mentioned. “That in flip created the circumstances for a brand new GM to be efficient in attracting extra private and non-private funding.”

PhilanthropyAs Ginsburg walks round Golden Gate Park, he’s wanting to level out the impression that philanthropy has had on the panorama. “Our park system wouldn’t exist as we speak with out philanthropy,” he mentioned as he handed the Conservatory of Flowers. “I guess underneath the phrases of this ordinance, that constructing wouldn’t have been constructed as we speak.”

Ginsburg is talking of the behested funds measure that went into impact this yr within the wake of the Mohammed Nuru scandal, wherein the disgraced head of the Division of Public Works funneled practically $1 million in de-facto bribes into an account that he managed with the Parks Alliance. The ordinance prohibits public officers from soliciting donations from a person or group that has enterprise with that official’s division, and it bars departments from coordinating with nonprofits on fundraising and different initiatives. (The Parks Alliance says it was not conscious of Nuru’s criminal activity and has not been accused of wrongdoing within the FBI’s Metropolis Corridor corruption probe.)

Regardless of its preliminary recognition — the ordinance handed the Board of Supervisors unanimously and was reaffirmed by the voters with practically 70% of the vote as this yr’s Proposition E — there’s now a consensus at Metropolis Corridor that a few of its provisions are overly broad and hamper authorities functioning. Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin are at present negotiating a package deal of amendments to the legislation.

In line with Ginsburg, the present ordinance would have prevented the Parks Alliance-led campaigns that raised $24 million for the Tennis Middle and $28 million for Francisco Park. And he’s involved about his means to boost one other $40 million or extra for India Basin.

Philanthropy has additionally been instrumental in Rec and Park’s programming for underserved communities, Ginsburg mentioned. The Tennis Studying Middle’s after-school program has served 500 low-income college students in three years and has been correlated with a big lower in absenteeism, he mentioned. The preliminary part of India Basin is already funding a youth and household swim class in Hunters Level — which group members requested through the outreach course of.

“Twenty-first century metropolis authorities can’t do it alone. You want companions and also you want associates, it doesn’t matter whether or not we’re speaking about parks or homelessness,” Ginsburg mentioned. “And there’s no park system in the US of America that doesn’t depend on philanthropic assist.”

Nonetheless, Rec and Park’s relationship with the Parks Alliance has continued to be a political soccer. The main critics are Supervisors Peskin and Connie Chan, who, in a matter of years, has gone from defending Ginsburg as a Rec and Park spokesperson, to changing into considered one of his loudest critics. Their most up-to-date battle was over the contract extension for the Ferris wheel in Golden Gate Park final yr. The 2 supervisors referred to as into query an association wherein the Parks Alliance could be reimbursed the primary $200,000 in income generated by the Ferris wheel to pay again the prices of Golden Gate Park’s a hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration and angled to torpedo a four-year extension of the Ferris wheel’s run.

In an obvious act of retaliation, the Parks Alliance despatched a letter to Chan all however threatening to tug funding from a Let’s Play SF playground renovation undertaking in her district.

Finally, the Board of Supervisors rejected Peskin and Chan’s view of the Ferris wheel, and it continues to spin in Golden Gate Park. The Richmond Playground renovation that the Parks Alliance threatened to halt remains to be listed as having a 2023 opening. Chan and Peskin each declined to remark for this text.

‘True environmentalism’

With the behested funds ordinance and considerations in regards to the Parks Alliance persevering with to simmer, Ginsburg now has one other battle on his palms. The closure of JFK Drive is the topic of dueling November poll initiatives. Rec and Park stays in favor of conserving vehicles off JFK, in mild of information displaying that three quarters of automotive journeys down the highway began and ended exterior of the park. “If we actually need to stroll the speak,” Ginsburg mentioned as he trotted down the center of JFK, “we have to place a better worth on parks and folks than we do on vehicles and comfort.”

Ginsburg describes the controversy round JFK Drive as “a dialog between the previous and the longer term.” As soon as a loyal motorist, Ginsburg has not too long ago develop into an avid e-bike rider, utilizing JFK to commute from his Sundown District residence to Rec and Park headquarters at McLaren Lodge or conferences at Metropolis Corridor. “I’ve come to know that true environmentalism is preserving or enhancing city density,” he mentioned. “That’s how we save the planet, by creating dense, practical cities.”

That perspective informs his assist for transportation moonshots just like the west facet subway that metropolis planners are at present finding out. The undertaking would doubtless tunnel underneath — and doubtlessly even embrace a station in — Golden Gate Park. “Little doubt such a undertaking could be inconvenient for many people over an extended time frame,” Ginsburg mentioned. “But when that’s one thing that may make San Francisco extra livable, extra sustainable and extra equitable, then I’m for it.”

However Ginsburg’s Rec and Park doesn’t all the time “stroll the speak.” In a latest column, John King, the Chronicle’s city design critic, described Francisco Park as a missed alternative to make use of the publicly owned former reservoir website in uber-wealthy Russian Hill for inexpensive housing in addition to a park.

Ginsburg referred to as that “an affordable dialogue level” however went on to say, “We’ve got to do not forget that this area was constructed with $27.5 million in philanthropy. … It’s onerous to say whether or not we might have been capable of construct the park in any respect underneath that state of affairs, as a result of possibly folks wouldn’t have felt as impressed to assist the undertaking.”

For higher or for worse, parks are one thing nearly all San Franciscans can comply with assist. Housing, homeless shelters, improved public transit and prison justice reform? Not a lot.

And so San Francisco’s deepest issues proceed to fester, producing simple fodder for parachuting pundits and provoking a dour civic temper. However no less than we’ve got our superb parks as a refuge or a distraction or, maybe, a reminder that San Francisco can nonetheless do nice issues.

“All this angst speaks to the significance of our mission, and the necessity to by no means, ever, ever let up,” Ginsburg mentioned over the beat of Anderson .Paak’s “JEWELZ” in Golden Gate Park’s newly refurbished Skatin’ Place. Rollerbladers had been gliding spherical and spherical, all smiles. “It’s our accountability to offer soothing, inspirational, cohesive social infrastructure for San Francisco, and it wants it now greater than ever.”