Angela Alioto, Esq
Angela was born and raised in San Francisco, along with her five brothers. Angela’s parents are former San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto and Angelina Genaro Alioto. She attended nursery, elementary and high school at the Covent of the Sacred Heart. Angela graduated cum laude from Lone Mountain College in 1971. At the age of 29, after all four of her children were in school, Angela enrolled in law school. In 1983, she graduated from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Angela Alioto married Adolfo Veronese on December 8, 1968. They have four children together – Angela Mia, Adolfo, Joseph and Gian-Paolo.
On November 8, 1988, Angela was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after placing second in a field of 24 candidates with over 95,000 votes. She was reelected in November 1992, placing first with nearly 150,000 votes and became Board President.
Angela served as Board President from January 1993 to January 1995. As President, Angela served as Vice-Chair of the Board’s Finance Committee. After Angela’s term as Board President expired, she served as the Chair of two Board Committees: the Health, Public Safety and Environment Committee and the Select Committee on Municipal Public Power, the committee she created as President. On January 8, 1997, Angela left the Board of Supervisors due to term limits.
During her tenure on the Board, Angela fought the tobacco companies with several pieces of legislation, including the strongest anti-smoking ordinance in the United States. She also focused on protecting neighborhood health care, created a comprehensive homeless plan, increased funding for AIDS services, wrote the City’s needle exchange legislation, cosponsored the minority business laws, crimes legislation, protected workers rights, assured environmental protection, helped small business, and furthered efforts to municipalize the City’s electrical utility system. Angela also created the San Francisco Film Commission and the San Francisco Youth Commission.
Early in her career, Angela helped produce a video designed to provide AIDS education for teenagers throughout the school system. The video depicts teenagers with AIDS, vividly bringing home the message of awareness to teenagers who are now one of the highest risk groups in the country.
Angela served in 1985 as the Co-Chair of the State Democratic Party’s Platform Committee. She served as First Vice-Chair of the California State Democratic Party from 1991-1993 and served as Second Vice-chair. She was selected as a super delegate to the 1992 National Convention, and was elected Co-Chair of the California Delegation. She also served as California Chair of the Jerry Brown for President Campaign in 1992.
Angela has served as a member of the Golden Gate Bridge District and has served on the Outer-Continental Shelf Board of Control, as Vice-Chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and as Chair of the Transportation Authority’s Finance Committee, as a member of the Association of Bay Area Governments, lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the San Francisco Mental Health Board.
Angela is a lifetime member of the Dante Society of America, The Society for Professional Journalists, The Bar Association of San Francisco, USF School of Law’s Labor & Employment Law Advisory Board and The American Trial Lawyers Association and is on the Board of Directors for The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. She also served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, and is the international Director of the Knights of Saint Francis of Assisi and Archconfraternity comprised of volunteers who are dedicated to the total management of the Porziuncola Nuova and to protect, secure and financially sustain the National Shrine of Saint Francis and the Porziuncola Nuova. Angela has supported such groups as the Equal Rights Advocates, Raoul Wallenberg Jewish Democratic Club, Bay Area Young Positives, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club, San Francisco Tomorrow, and many other Democratic clubs and neighborhood groups.
Angela has also continued her involvement in community issues. She served as legal counsel for a grass-roots based organization, “Citizens for Lower Utility Bills.” CLUB was successful in placing a ballot initiative establishing a municipal utility district for San Francisco on the local November 2001 ballot. Angela has worked on this issue for over 13 years. In 2004 Angela was appointed as the Chairwoman to San Francisco’s Ten Year Plan Implementation Council. The Council is dedicated to abolishing chronic Homelessness in San Francisco and has been recognized as a national model.
Angela began the Renaissance Project at the National Shrine of Saint Francis. The first phase of the project was to recreate the little church that Saint Francis of Assisi built himself. He called this little church the “Porziuncola”, meaning “little corner of the world”, that is, his portion. It was here that Saint Francis began to understand his vocation to follow the Gospel and give up all worldly goods, pray for and advocate peace, and take care of the poor.
A replica of the Porziuncola was built in 2008. It is adjacent to the main church at the National Shrine of Saint Francis for all to see, visit and pray in this sacred place of contemplation and prayer, and to feel the energy of the spirit of Saint Francis.
On August 2, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI name San Francisco’s Porziuncola the “Porziuncola Nuova” and made the Porziuncola the 5th holy place in the world. The Porziuncola was opened on September 27, 2008 by Cardinal William Levada and Archbishop George Niederauer. It has attracted world-wide attention since its opening.
Angela Alioto has also written a book about her experiences in San Francisco politics. The book is entitled “Straight to the Heart”, and it covers eight years of San Francisco politics appropriately based on Dante’s inferno.