Angela Alioto takes big step toward SF mayoral run

San Francisco attorney and former Supervisor Angela Alioto took a major step Monday toward a mayoral run, requesting nomination documents from the city’s Department of Elections.

Alioto is a longtime presence on San Francisco’s political scene. She served two terms on the Board of Supervisors in the 1980s and ’90s, including a stint as board president, and last year she won a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee.

Her father, Joe Alioto, was San Francisco’s mayor from 1968 to 1976. She has run twice for mayor herself, coming closest in 2003, when she finished third in the primary behind Matt Gonzalez and eventual winner Gavin Newsom.

This time around, Alioto, 68, said she intends to center her mayoral campaign on tackling the city’s homelessness problem, an issue she’s been involved with for years. She called it the “prime motivator” behind her decision to run.

“It’s something I know in my heart can be improved,” Alioto said. “In this wealthy, beautiful city, it’s disgraceful. And I know it’s something I can seriously have an effect on.”

In 2004, Alioto was appointed by then-Mayor Newsom to draw up a plan designed to end chronic homelessness in San Francisco within a decade. Although the plan fell well short of that goal, its central mission — guiding those living on the street into permanent supportive housing — is one that Alioto stands by, and intends to resurrect on the campaign trail.

“Our plan made a difference. It took people off the street,” Alioto said. “I believe in my experience in homelessness, and I have a total belief that we can make a major dent in this crisis.”

Alioto also said she would take a hard look at the city’s dozens of departments in an effort to ensure that all homelessness-related contracts “dovetail into permanent supportive housing.”

Alioto joins former state Sen. Mark Leno and a small clutch of lesser-known potential candidates in having pulled papers for the June 5 ranked-choice election, which was scheduled after Mayor Ed Lee’s death from a heart attack on Dec. 12.

Several others are believed to be considering a run and have until Jan. 9 to file papers. They include acting Mayor London Breed, Assemblyman David Chiu, Supervisors Jane Kim and Mark Farrell, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

Alioto’s sometimes brash brand of politicking has made her a divisive figure in some circles, as evidenced by her failed effort to close down a block of Vallejo Street between Columbus and Grant avenues to create a piazza.

Despite endorsements from Lee and Newsom and a commitment to use only private money to build the space, the piazza proved to be a wedge issue in North Beach. After a tense meeting in October that drew scores of residents both for and against the idea, the Municipal Transportation Agency’s board of directors told staff not to study the project further.