Tom Whelan
North Beach Beat
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
The betting money says Ammiano is incapable of pulling together a majority on election day, and The Wethead from the Marina is the odds-on favorite as long as Burton stays out. Odds have a way of changing. Of all the mayoral candidates, the one most familiar to North Beachers would be Angela Alioto.
Alioto's Chances begin with a modest but solid base ó and then, should she spend enough money, garner enough union support and attract the endorsement of Ammiano when he finally wises up, Angela Alioto would actually make mayor. The Beat (editors Long, Osterberg and Whelan) caught up with Alioto at a coffeehouse one recent North Beach Sunday after church. She told us about the theft of her cell phone, a harbinger of the eventual break-in at her Montgomery Street Offices and the theft of her campaign computers. We spoke for an hour.
Legacy Alioto: Angela Alioto: So, North Beach (for me) goes back to 1852 with Mama Alioto's mom and dad. Her mother was born here and her name was Lazio. So, literally, North Beach to me means many generations of us. I bring my granddaughter down here every Saturday morning. I don't miss.
I'm at the Shrine of St. Francis. I was the chairperson of the committee to keep it open . And I'm there every Sunday at 2:15 There is no other neighborhood in the world, like ìNortha Beacha.î
... What a quality of life. This is beautiful.
School days: I went to the Convent of the Sacred Heart from 2 years old. I had my second birthday in the cafeteria. And graduated when I was 17 and continued ... to their college which as San Francisco College for Women in Lone Mountain. Graduated in ë7 I from there with two children and expecting my third. I had four children by the time I was 24.
A busy education: And then I did college. You know once you get married and you are pregnant all the time, it's easy to study. (laughs) I graduated cum laude in Italian and English literature... Art History is a big one with me, too.
The Renaissance is one of my passions. So I didn't go back for law school until my little guy, GianóPaolo was in school all day, until I was 30, 29. USF. I love school.
Priorities of an Alioto administration: I think they're real clear. I think they're priorities of every San Franciscan who loves San Francisco That is. No 1, the budget deficit and why it is such a deficit.
I plan on spending the first 80 days in office literally cross-examining every single department head and asking them who. what, when where and how did they arrive, where did the money go, what kind ot contracts are they in, so that I can see where the surplus (is) which I believe
will be in the multi hundred millions of dollars ...
Really? in contracts I have received and investigated in the last four months. It would boggle your mind at the concept of the reverse side of this coin, closing the M.H.R.F. ( Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility) out at General Hospital for the mentally ill. ...
Unconscionable decisions being made, so the budget is a major priority to me. Also, obviously in San Francisco the mayor issues are homelessness and affordable housing, safety.
Still homelessness, after all these years: So, I would say the second issue to the budget is homelessness. But Mario Cuomo once told me. ìDon't talk about it get in office and do it.î And I think he is absolutely right. I have a fantastic plan that involves over 1,500 volunteers from the private and public sectors, helping the mayor. (It would be) somewhat like a Peace Corps ó call it the San Francisco Corps with 22 centers all over town that act as triage centers. And the corps will literally go pick up people that are willing to be picked up, and once they get to the center, they will be sent out to mental health, triple diagnosis, women and children, veterans, to the agencies that know what they're doing, as opposed to the City spending $200 million not knowing what it's doing. So the budget is really like a top priority that affects almost everything. homelessness to affordable housing, to clean streets, which is major to me.
As a born and raised San Franciscan, a top priority to me is to bring back the spirit of who we are. We're San Franciscans. San Franciscans come back from earthquakes and fires and literally, like the phoenix, out of the ashes. We had a spirit no other people had. I want that spirit to come back. because it is gone
How?: I think a lot of it has to do with these quality-of-life issues. where people have become (hard). San Franciscans don't put up billboards saying ìKick your local homeless person when you walk by themî. That isn't the spirit ... St. Francis is our patron. It is in giving that we receive. It isn't. ìDon't give the homeless person a lousy dollar, and while you're at it, kick him when you walk by.î I'm dying to do one of those billboards that's got Mr. Newsom on the sidewalk with his cufflinks and suit on and Mr. Getty walking by, putting in an $11 million check. That's the one I want to see. (Iaughs) But having said that ó it is about spirit. It is about what you do when you put up billboards like that. It isn't about the issue of homelessness. It's what you do to the spirit of a city when you do that. And it's been done repeatedly, year after year after year for six, eight years, and that's why we've lost who we are.
Little steps: It may be little steps, billboards. But, the closing of the M.H.R.F., closing of the health care centers, the closing of ódisallowing ó health care, or prevailing wages. Those are all little things that add to everybody's quality of life, and therefore, presses them down, instead of letting them up. And you feel it
Absolutely No DLG
BEAT: This ties into ... identity. San Franciscans' self-identity, the strengths of San Francisco having gone away, your legacy as a politician in this city, and your father's legacy. Let's say he oversaw a lot of ... transformation, of business changing, going away, let's say the Port ó
ALIOTO: I think the Port is the only thing he oversaw 30 years ago. I think all the legal and banking (business that's gone away) that's all been in the last six, seven years. ... Losing the Port was a real change.
BEAT: So the larger question: Because you are an Alioto. it's both positive and negative in any candidacy. right?
ALIOTO: Not to me. (laughs) When I first ran, they used to accuse me of being daddy's little girl and we all got defensive. We would put out a folder: ìSome say she is daddy's little girl.î And we had all these elected officials who endorsed me and it would say: ìLook who disagrees.î With all due respects I am older. I have four incredible children. I have a granddaughter, and expecting my second grandson. And I should be so lucky to be ìdaddy's little girl.î I am embarrassed that I ever defended that. So, there's no negative to me, to be Joe Alioto's daughter.
BEAT: But in a political campaign somebody is going to ask you, let it be me:
Certainly you don't want to be exactly the same kind of mayor as your father was, whether you love him and respect him and believe that he did a great thing. You have got to be the mayor of today, as it sounds like you are. You are not trying to be daddy's little girl.
ALIOTO: No. not at all Wait. Wait. Daddy's little girl infers that daddy's little girl does exactly what daddy ó
BEAT: that's the question How, specifically would your administration be different from your father's way of mayoring the city?
ALIOTO: You know, it's very difficult for me to answer the question, which is basically asking me is, how are you different than another human being? You see what I'm saying?
BEAT: How are you different from your father?
ALIOTO: Well, you know, very. Very. And hopefully, I'm very much like him. Dad and I agreed on many, many issues and we disagreed on many, many issues.
BEAT: Give us an example of something you disagreed on.
ALIOTO: Development. Development. (laughs)
I'm gonna give you the inside scoop, here. He used to look outside his window at 650 California down onto, from Chinatown, from Grant Avenue down to Columbus. He used to say. ìWhat are all those little ol' buildings'? You know, we ought to build something.î And I used to say. ìYou've got to be kidding. that's San Francisco. Those little old buildings are fantastic; we have to do all we can to pre-
serve those.î So we definitely disagreed. He was against Prop M (height limits on buildings). I was for Prop M way back in 1986. We disagreed on the (battleship) USS Missouri. I'm absolutely against bringing anything that's got nuclear arms into the Bay and into San Francisco, and he was very much for it. I think that we agree 100 percent on the value of San Francisco neighborhoods. He was a big advocate of the neighborhoods.
BEAT: But he didn't see the connection between the buildings and the neighborhoods?
ALIOTO: Well, it depends on what buildings you're talking about. He wasn't talking about Grant Avenue. It's not like he was saying, ìWipe out that whole neighborhood.î If you take a look from one of those (high-rise) buildings, and look from Grant Avenue down to Montgomery, there are a lot of little buildings all the same: all yellow, but different shades of yellow. It's very interesting. And to me it's very historic San Francisco. To him it was, you know, a mess. So, we differed very much there. (But) every time I landmarked a building, he loved that. As a matter of fact he helped me landmark the 11 churches when ... (then Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown was trying to move the ability to landmark from the city to the state. The concept of some assemblyman from Ventura deciding whether St. Brigid's is of architectural value was so out of the question to me ... He helped me very much. The table-and-chair legislation that I started in North Beach (allowing outdoor cafe seating), that went all over the city, was written by him.
BEAT: How do you like it?
ALIOTO: I love it.
(The Beat vote on the issue of tables and chairs on the street was, well, split.)