John Barbagelata (March 29, 1919 – March 19, 1994) was a

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

City Supervisor and 1975 mayoral candidate, when he narrowly lost to

George Moscone George Richard Moscone ( ; November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 37th mayor of San Francisco from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known as "The People's ...

. He was also the owner of a local real estate firm. As of 2020, he was the last Republican to be elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in 1973.

Personal life

John Barbagelata was born in San Francisco in 1919. At the age of 13 his family home in the Marina district was relocated to make way for the highway to the Golden Gate Bridge. He was employed by Pan Am Airlines and was responsible for their expansion into Japan and China after WWII. He was a

realtor Real estate agents and real estate brokers are people who represent sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and agent ...

and the founder of the Barbagelata Realty Company, which is still operating in San Francisco's

West Portal West Portal is a small neighborhood located on the West Side of San Francisco, California. West Portal is a primarily residential area of the city. The neighborhood's main corridor, West Portal Avenue, serves as a principal shopping district of ...

neighborhood. He had eight children and was a devout Catholic.

Political career

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

businessman, Barbagelata advocated for pro-business policies such as lower taxes and minimal government regulation of business. He fought corruption of

labor union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s, was targeted by leftist groups such as the SLA (

Symbionese Liberation Army The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (commonly referred to simply as the SLA) was a small, American militant far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and wider Am ...

) and the lesser know NWLF (

New World Liberation Front The New World Liberation Front (NWLF) was a left-wing terrorist group active in Northern California in the United States in the mid to late 1970s. The history ''Days of Rage'' by Bryan Burrough described NWLF as one of the "great mysteries of the ...

). These terrorist organizations were responsible for assassination attempts against Barbagelata and his family, one such attempt was a bomb concealed in a See's candy box. Some of his political achievements include the de-escalation of the Native Americans occupation of Alcatraz Island, the support of the "Street Artist Movement" and working with the board of supervisors to balance the budget. During his time in office Barbagelata voted in favor of: *Resolution asking the section which made homosexuality criminal behavior be deleted from the penal Code Revision. *Resolution asking that a gay commissioner be appointed to the Human Rights Commission, Ordinance creating a three person Gay Advisory Committee for the Human Rights Commission. *AB 489 (Consensual Act Bill) *AB 633 (Adding Sexual Orientation to the Fair Employment Practice Act) *He met with Huey Newton the leader of the Black Panthers to understand what his followers were asking for. *Barbagelata was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1970 on a campaign of

fiscal responsibility A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budget ...

and lower taxes. Barbagelata ran for mayor in 1975 against progressive candidate

, promising low taxes, a crackdown on crime, and a fight against corruption and "irresponsible City spending". He lost by fewer than 5,000 votes. For the rest of his life, Barbagelata maintained that the

Peoples Temple The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, originally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was an American new religious organization which existed between 1954 and 1978 and was affiliated with the C ...

far-left religious cult, led by

Jim Jones James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, preacher and mass murderer who founded and led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrat ...

, committed

election fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

in the 1975 election by busing in out-of-town church members to double- and triple-vote for Moscone under the names of dead voters.Cothran, George
Barbagelata's Return?
, San Francisco Weekly, November 18, 1998. He retired from politics in 1978, returning briefly in the late 1980s to promote a successful referendum creating

term limit A term limit is a legal restriction on the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potential for monopoly, w ...

s for City Supervisors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbagelata, John 1994 deaths 1919 births 20th-century California politicians 20th-century Roman Catholics American real estate brokers California Republicans Catholic politicians from California San Francisco Board of Supervisors members