Art Agnos

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.

Arthur Christ Agnos (born Arthouros Agnos; September 1, 1938) is an American politician.

He moved to San Francisco in 1966 and went to work at the San Francisco Housing Authority as a social worker with senior populations.

Agnos was asked by California State Assemblyman Leo McCarthy to join his staff in January 1968.

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.

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.

Four of the killers were convicted of murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Three had died by July 1, 2021.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He served as the 39th mayor of San Francisco, California from 1988 to 1992 and as the Regional Head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 2001.

Agnos was born Arthouros Agnos in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Greek immigrants.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bates College and a Master of Social Work from Florida State University.

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.

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.