Agnos was asked by California State Assemblyman Leo McCarthy to join his staff in January 1968. McCarthy was elected Speaker of the Assembly in 1974 and Agnos became his Chief of Staff. During this period,Agnos helped obtain the first California state funding for community-based mental-health services serving the lesbian and gay community,helped pass nursing-home reform,and worked for preservation of farm land.
In 1976,Agnos was elected to the California State Assembly,defeating Harvey Milk in the Democratic primary in the 16th District,which at the time covered the eastern neighborhoods of San Francisco.[2] He served as the Chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and as chair of the health subcommittee of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Agnos also served as co-chair of the Joint Committee on South East Asian Refugees.
Agnos authored legislation that received national attention for innovative approaches to challenges in health care,welfare,and civil rights,among other areas. He authored California's model welfare reform,GAIN,that matched work requirements with funding for job training,education,and child care.[3] Agnos also authored much of California's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic,working directly with President Reagan's Surgeon General,C. Everett Koop,M.D.,and the President of the National Academy of Sciences,David Baltimore,Ph.D.[4]
Although Agnos arranged for the nation's first Joint Legislative Session on the AIDS/HIV epidemic with Koop and Baltimore,the comprehensive approach to the epidemic failed to muster a majority of votes when the governor failed to support the measure.
Since then,nearly all aspects of Agnos' proposals have become law and policy in California. Agnos also authored laws that provide support for family caregivers,fair child-support payments with a calculation that remains known as the Agnos calculator,safeguards against brain damage in the boxing ring,and legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.[5]
Assassination attempt
On December 13,1973,Agnos,who was then a member of the California Commission on Aging,was attending a meeting in the largely black public housing project in the San Francisco neighborhood of Potrero Hill,to discuss building a publicly funded health clinic in the area. After the meeting concluded,he was shot twice in the chest at point-blank range. His life was saved only by the downward trajectory of the bullets. By his own account,he lost a year of his life to recuperation.[6] This was one attack of the Zebra murders and attempted murders in the city from October 1973 to April 1974. The 15 known killings and attempted murders were perpetrated by an offshoot group of the Nation of Islam,a black separatist organization,in which "points" were earned by killing a white person.[7] Four of the killers were convicted of murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. Three had died by July 1,2021.[8]
Mayor of San Francisco
In 1987,Agnos ran for mayor to replace Dianne Feinstein,who was term-limited. Agnos came from behind to defeat Supervisor John Molinari,garnering 70 percent of the vote. Agnos took San Francisco in a different direction,agreeing to a consent decree opposed by Feinstein that opened the way for hiring and promotion of African-Americans and women in the fire department. He changed the priorities for the Redevelopment Commission from creating economic and business opportunities to focus on housing,resulting in the largest increase in affordable housing in twenty years. He disbanded the police unit that had engaged in spying on demonstrations. He empowered the Commission on the Status of Women with subpoena powers and independence and named more minorities and lesbians and gay men to top city commissions and department directors than ever before. He was the first mayor to ride in the annual LGBT Freedom Parade. During his term,the city won top bond ratings,ended deficit spending,and endorsed comparable worth and domestic partners,including health insurance for city workers. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989,Agnos refused to move homeless people forced from shelters until new housing was available,which led to a nine-month presence in Civic Center,changing the earlier policy of simply moving homeless from one place to another. In 1991,Agnos lost his re-election bid to the former police chief who promised to put the city "back on track" and who was strongly supported by the firefighters and others opposed to Agnos's policy initiatives.
Agnos' liberalism also ran counter to other conservative interests. As mayor,Agnos and his family became the first to ride in the Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Parade,appointed minorities,lesbians and gays to high city posts,and ended the city's opposition to a court-ordered consent decree to hire and promote minorities and women in the fire department which a federal judge opined was "out of control" due to racism when Agnos took office.[9] Agnos ended a police department policy seen as permitting spying on local political organizations and ended the Department's Tactical Squad that critics blamed for abusing citizens. Agnos also strengthened civilian oversight of the Police Department.
Agnos is best known for leading the city through the recovery of the Loma Prieta earthquake,the worst since 1906,and the decision to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway (SR 480),a double-decker freeway along the city's Embarcadero that was a wall between the waterfront and the city.[10] His decision was strongly opposed by the Chamber of Commerce and the Chinatown community,who found the freeway a convenience for business purposes,and nearly 25,000 signatures were collected to put a measure on the ballot to repeal the decision to tear down the freeway. Once Agnos obtained federal funding,that opposition melted away.[11] A 6–5 vote at the city's Board of Supervisors paved the way to tear down the freeway,which led to the start of a decades-long effort to open up the San Francisco waterfront into what is widely considered one of the best outcomes from the earthquake. However,Agnos's 1991 opponent used the decision to play to Chinatown's sentiments and indicated he opposed tearing down the freeway. In 1991,Chinatown played a significant role in his failure to win re-election. Agnos lost in a 51.5%–48.5% election by a few thousand votes,almost the same as the Chinatown vote.
In recent years,Agnos's decision has been looked to by city leaders and elected officials in Seattle and Toronto,Canada,where Agnos' Embarcadero result is considered a potential model for replacing elevated freeways in urban areas.[12] Under Agnos,the waterfront transit system gained an uninterrupted streetcar line with historic trolley cars running from Fisherman's Wharf in the north to Mission Bay in the south.[13] Agnos added to the waterfront by laying plans for the city's first public access pier,Pier 7,to allow pedestrians to walk out into the Bay. Today,San Francisco has dedicated a new public pier,Pier 14,to honor Agnos for his leadership in opening the city's waterfront.[14]
Agnos' San Francisco struggled with homelessness,a challenge that faced a number of cities in the late 1980s. Agnos convened a task force of providers,homeless advocates,city agency representatives and others to develop an approach that hoped to end the reliance on overnight shelters in favor of programs to help homeless individuals and families become self-reliant. The plan,Beyond Shelter,won national recognition and awards.[15]
The 1989 earthquake resulted in the loss of more than 1,000 low-rent housing units,including units housing those recovering from homelessness. Agnos championed changes in earthquake recovery programs from the federal and state government and from the Red Cross that provided funds to build new facilities and housing to implement the Beyond Shelter program and to restore arts programs and facilities. In 1993,the results were named a Finalist in the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.
During the nine months that it took to renovate and open the Beyond Shelter multiservice centers,Agnos allowed homeless individuals to camp in the park in front of City Hall,saying that the alternative was to drive them into neighborhoods and that,as long as they were in front of City Hall,city leaders would be confronted daily with the urgency of the crisis. Critics dubbed the result "Camp Agnos" and called on him to use police force to remove them,which Agnos refused to do.[16]
Agnos remained committed to a program of expanding affordable,low-cost housing in San Francisco. The city increased funding to repair and rehabilitate public housing by 300 percent,changing the vacancy rate from ten percent to one percent. He increased other affordable housing production from 342 units when he took office to 2,240 units,winning San Francisco's first national recognition from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Excellence in Rental Rehabilitation and a Special Achievement Award.
Agnos signed a law establishing domestic partner recognition for lesbian and gay couples that had been vetoed by his predecessor,which then became a target of repeal efforts.[17] In 1989,voters narrowly repealed domestic partner recognition. Agnos moved forward with a Family Policy Task Force that recommended broad changes to San Francisco policy and law,including health insurance for domestic partners of city workers. In 1991,the city formally adopted domestic partner health insurance rights for the city's 20,000 employees,the largest employer to do so at that time.[18] In 1991,San Francisco voters approved a new domestic partners recognition law for the city.
Agnos served as Chair of the US Conference of Mayors AIDS Task Force,where he organized the lobbying effort that resulted in passage of the Ryan White Care bill.[19] He implemented the policies he advocated as a state legislator,including a 98 percent increase in the city's AIDS budget. He created the Mayors Task Force on the AIDS/HIV Epidemic staffed by Dr. Don Francis,a national leader on AIDS/HIV and credited with leading the effort to eradicate smallpox worldwide.[20]
During his tenure,Agnos also undertook major improvements to the city's infrastructure. As first lady of San Francisco,Agnos's wife Sherry co-chaired the bond campaigns for public school renovations and a new Main Library at Civic Center,and Agnos designated that the existing Main Library become the new home for the Asian Art Museum that had been in Golden Gate Park. Agnos ended the nation's longest stalled public works project at Yerba Buena to develop a cultural hub that includes the Museum of Modern Art,Yerba Buena Center,and Yerba Buena Gardens.[21] Agnos also proposed a waterfront site for a new San Francisco Giants ballpark,but the proposal narrowly lost in November 1989 weeks after the Loma Prieta earthquake absorbed public attention. Later the Giants ballpark was sited at the location Agnos designated and built to the same overall design by the architects and developers he selected originally.
Post-mayoral career
During the Clinton administration,Agnos served as Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for California,Arizona,Nevada,and Hawaii. Agnos also served as Acting FHA Commissioner and Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing,as well as Director of the Special Actions Office.
Agnos led HUD's effort to uplift San Francisco's Visitacion Valley,blighted by twin 20-story high-rises supported by HUD and which were unsafe for the residents and the community. Agnos created a partnership with the city,the residents,local community leaders,and HUD that led to the demolishing of Geneva Towers in 1998 and a new resident-led housing development of townhouses and apartments.
Agnos also crafted a HUD partnership for teacher housing in San Francisco and communities with excess land set aside for schools. Under the program,HUD financing supported construction and rental assistance for housing dedicated for teachers. San Jose,California,has a similar program now in effect.
Agnos worked with city leaders throughout the region to create the first funding for homeless coordination between neighboring cities to address concerns that services were not well matched with those in need.
Former mayor Agnos in 2010
Agnos also led an effort to combat predatory lending aimed at minority homeowners and to repeal "racial covenants" barring non-whites from living or staying overnight in many California communities.
Agnos worked with his mentor former California Assembly Speaker and Lt. Governor Leo T. McCarthy to establish the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco. He has frequently been called upon by the US State Department,the National Democratic Institute,the Asia Foundation,and other international bodies to provide leadership development on democracy building,including in the Russian Far East,the Kurdish regions of Turkey,Zaire,Sierra Leone,Angola,Korea,and as one of the first officials to arrive in Bethlehem to offer disaster assistance after the Israeli army siege of the Church of the Nativity ended on May 10,2002. He also is frequently sought as a speaker on disaster preparedness and recovery.
In 2007,Agnos was appointed as receiver for the troubled San Francisco Housing Authority. The Housing Authority sued to block the court order,and the matter went before the California Court of Appeals.[22] The city still failed to act for two years,while appealing Agnos' appointment. By April 2009,the SF Chronicle reported that continued inaction while Agnos' appointment remained in court "seemed to jolt City Hall into action. Agnos never took control of the agency;instead,Fortner resigned under pressure from Newsom,who appointed Mirian Saez,director of operations at Treasure Island,to run the agency on an interim basis before hiring Alvarez. Under Saez and then Alvarez,the agency sold off properties to satisfy the judgments."[23]
Agnos' most recent projects also include advising the founders of Open House,the first senior housing planned for elderly gay,lesbian,bisexual and transgender people in San Francisco as well as a project working with young families seeking to improve neighborhood schools in their neighborhood of Potrero Hill in San Francisco,[24] and he has worked as a consultant with Minnesota-based Cargill and Arizona-based DMB Associates on their controversial plan to develop a bay salt pond in Redwood City.[25]
Agnos has become involved with restricting the building of new housing in San Francisco. He strongly opposed the 8 Washington condominium project in 2013,in support of "No Wall on the Waterfront".[26] Agnos also was a prominent advocate for Proposition B,a precedent-setting measure approved by a wide margin by voters in June 2014 that required developments along the waterfront to win voter approval if the plan called for a height that exceeded the height limits established in the Waterfront Land Use plan first approved by voters in 1990 and implemented in 1997.[27] He is also involved with attempts to block the redevelopment of the San Francisco Flower Mart.[28] In 2024,he supported anti-housing legislation to restrict housing supply in San Francisco's Northern Waterfront.[29]
San Francisco,officially the City and County of San Francisco,is a commercial,financial,and cultural center within Northern California. With a population of 808,988 residents as of 2023,San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California behind Los Angeles,San Diego,and San Jose. It covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula,making it the second-most densely populated major U.S. city behind New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county,behind four of New York City's boroughs. Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents,San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022. San Francisco anchors the 13th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States,with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area,the fifth-largest urban region in the U.S.,had a 2023 estimated population of over 9 million.
On October 17,1989,at 5:04 p.m. local time,the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County,approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and was named for the nearby Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With an Mw magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent),the shock was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas Fault System had been relatively inactive since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake until two moderate foreshocks occurred in June 1988 and again in August 1989.
Roberta Achtenberg is an American attorney and civil rights advocate who served as a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She was previously assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,becoming the first openly lesbian or gay public official in the United States whose appointment to a federal position was confirmed by the United States Senate. This confirmation hearing garnered a lot of publicity,opposition,and support.
Jack London Square is a neighborhood on the waterfront of Oakland,California,United States. Named after the author Jack London and owned by the Port of Oakland,it is the home of stores,restaurants,hotels,Amtrak's Jack London Square station,a San Francisco Bay Ferry ferry dock,the historic Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon,the (re-located) cabin where Jack London lived in the Klondike,and a movie theater. The former presidential yacht USS Potomac is moored at an adjacent slip.
The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront of Port of San Francisco and a major roadway in San Francisco,California. It was constructed on reclaimed land along a three mile long engineered seawall,from which piers extend into the bay. It derives its name from the Spanish verb embarcar,meaning "to embark";embarcadero itself means "the place to embark." The Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 20,2002.
The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile (1.5 km) elevated freeway in San Francisco,California,United States,connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part of US 101,which exits at Mission Street on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. The freeway once extended north to Turk Street,and initially formed part of a loop around downtown,but was damaged along with the Embarcadero in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake;both highways have since been replaced with the surface-level Octavia Boulevard and Embarcadero,respectively.
The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco,California,United States,that serves as its main central business district and had 372,829 jobs according to U.S. census tracts as of 2012-2016. It is home to the city's largest concentration of corporate headquarters,law firms,insurance companies,real estate firms,savings and loan banks,and other financial institutions. Multiple Fortune 500 companies headquartered in San Francisco have their offices in the Financial District,including Wells Fargo,Salesforce,and Gap.
State Route 480 was a state highway in San Francisco,California,United States,consisting of the elevated double-decker Embarcadero Freeway,the partly elevated Doyle Drive approach to the Golden Gate Bridge and the proposed and unbuilt section in between. The unbuilt section from Doyle Drive to Van Ness Avenue was to have been called the Golden Gate Freeway and the Embarcadero Freeway as originally planned would have extended from Van Ness along the north side of Bay Street and then along the Embarcadero to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay,a food hall and an office building. It is located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco,California and is served by Golden Gate Ferry and San Francisco Bay Ferry routes.
The history of the city of San Francisco,California,and its development as a center of maritime trade,were shaped by its location at the entrance to a large natural harbor. San Francisco is the name of both the city and the county;the two share the same boundaries. Only lightly settled by European-Americans at first,after becoming the base for the gold rush of 1849 the city quickly became the largest and most important population,commercial,naval,and financial center in the American West. San Francisco was devastated by a great earthquake and fire in 1906 but was quickly rebuilt. The San Francisco Federal Reserve Branch opened in 1914,and the city continued to develop as a major business city throughout the first half of the 20th century. Starting in the later half of the 1960s,San Francisco became the city most famous for the hippie movement. In recent decades,San Francisco has become an important center of finance and technology. The high demand for housing,driven by its proximity to Silicon Valley,and the limited availability has led to the city being one of America's most expensive places to live. San Francisco is currently ranked 16th on the Global Financial Centres Index.
The Port of San Francisco is a semi-independent organization that oversees the port facilities at San Francisco,California,United States. It is run by a five-member commission,appointed by the Mayor subject to confirmation by a majority of the Board of Supervisors. The Port is responsible for managing the larger waterfront area that extends from the anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge,along the Marina district,all the way around the north and east shores of the city of San Francisco including Fisherman's Wharf and the Embarcadero,and southward to the city line just beyond Candlestick Point. In 1968,the State of California,via the California State Lands Commission for the State-operated San Francisco Port Authority,transferred its responsibilities for the Harbor of San Francisco waterfront to the City and County of San Francisco / San Francisco Harbor Commission through the Burton Act AB2649. All eligible State port authority employees had the option to become employees of the City and County of San Francisco to maintain consistent operation of the Port of San Francisco.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States,stretching from San Francisco,California,to Teaneck,New Jersey. The segment of I-80 in California runs east from San Francisco across the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge to Oakland,where it turns north and crosses the Carquinez Bridge before turning back northeast through the Sacramento Valley. I-80 then traverses the Sierra Nevada,cresting at Donner Summit,before crossing into the state of Nevada within the Truckee River Canyon. The speed limit is at most 65 mph (105 km/h) along the entire route instead of the state's maximum of 70 mph (110 km/h) as most of the route is in either urban areas or mountainous terrain. I-80 has portions designated as the Eastshore Freeway and Alan S. Hart Freeway.
Rincon Hill is a neighborhood in San Francisco,California. It is one of San Francisco's many hills,and one of its original "Seven Hills". The relatively compact neighborhood is bounded by Folsom Street to the north,the Embarcadero to the east,Bryant Street on the south,and Essex Street to the west. Named after Rincon Point that formerly extended into the bay there,Rincon Hill is located just south of the Transbay development area,part of the greater South of Market area. The hill is about 100 feet tall.
Harry Britt was an American politician and gay rights activist. Born in Texas,he worked as a Methodist pastor in Chicago as a young man and later moved to San Francisco. There,he worked with Harvey Milk until Milk's assassination in 1978. He was appointed to his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors,where he remained until 1993,and served as the board's president from 1989 to 1990. Britt was a Democrat and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1987 and for the California State Assembly in 2002,but was unsuccessful both times.
The 1991 San Francisco mayoral election was held on November 5,1991,with a runoff election on December 10 that year. Incumbent mayor Art Agnos,after having won nearly 70% of the vote in 1987,scraped by with less than a third of the vote in the first round and was narrowly unseated by Chief of Police Frank Jordan in the runoff.
Vaillancourt Fountain,sometimes called Québec libre!,is a large fountain in Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco,designed by the Québécois artist Armand Vaillancourt in collaboration with the plaza's landscape architect,Lawrence Halprin,and completed in 1971. It is about 40 feet (12 m) high and is constructed out of precast concrete square tubes. Long considered controversial because of its stark,modernist appearance,there have been several unsuccessful proposals to demolish the fountain over the years. It was the site of a free concert by U2 in 1987,when lead singer Bono spray painted graffiti on the fountain and was both praised and criticized for the action.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains five of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs,but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units,it has resulted in a statewide housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage,with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019,the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco,40 percent in Los Angeles,and 38 percent in San Diego,because rents would fall by 55 percent,41 percent,and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco,a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
Community Housing Partnership is a nonprofit organization in San Francisco,California,that provides housing,job training and other services to people formerly living in homelessness. Founded in 1990,it owns and operates 14 residential buildings and collaborates with other organizations in its goals.
Civic Center Plaza,also known as Joseph Alioto Piazza,is the 4.53-acre (1.83 ha) plaza immediately east of San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center,San Francisco,in the U.S. state of California. Civic Center Plaza occupies two blocks bounded by McAllister,Larkin,Grove,and Carlton B. Goodlett,divided into a north block and south block by the former alignment of Fulton Street. The block north of Fulton is built over a three-story parking garage;the block south of Fulton lies over a former exhibition space,Brooks Hall.
The Audiffred Building is a three-story historic commercial building in San Francisco,California,United States,formerly the location of waterfront bars and of the headquarters of a seamen's union,and now housing Boulevard restaurant. It is City of San Francisco Landmark number 7,and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
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