27 Facts About John Avalos

John Avalos was born on March 11,1964 and is an American politician.

John Avalos served two terms as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2008 to 2016.

John Avalos was elected on November 4,2008, in the 2008 San Francisco election and took office on January 8,2009.

John Avalos was re-elected in the 2012 San Francisco election with 94 percent of the vote, and termed out of office in January 2017.

John Avalos's parents divorced when he was young, and his mother cared for them on her own.

John Avalos moved to Andover, Massachusetts as a teenager and graduated from Andover High School in 1982.

In 1989, John Avalos moved to San Francisco, California where he later earned a Masters in Social Work from San Francisco State University.

On November 4,2008, John Avalos was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

In 2010, John Avalos passed legislation to set a 5-cent fee per serving of alcohol to raise funding for emergency services in response to alcohol consumption.

In 2010, John Avalos crafted an increase to San Francisco's Real Estate Transfer Tax for properties valued over $5,000,000 and $10,000,000.

In 2012, John Avalos worked with Mayor Ed Lee to update the City's business tax by creating a progressive gross receipts tax that included an exemption for small and low-profit businesses.

In December 2010, working with a coalition of labor and Black, Brown, and Asian community organizations, John Avalos passed the strongest Local Hiring Ordinance in the country.

John Avalos' Local Hiring Ordinance is based on the principle that public spending and development should benefit local residents and disadvantaged workers.

John Avalos later expanded the ordinance to apply to private development on public land.

In 2013, John Avalos initiated an effort to convince the San Francisco Employees Retirement System Board to divest from fossil fuel corporations.

John Avalos worked on opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and rulemaking to limit emissions from petroleum refineries, particularly around working-class communities of color.

In 2016, John Avalos sponsored and passed the Keep It in the Ground Ordinance banning the use of San Francisco public land for fossil fuel extraction and setting in motion the closure of Chevron oil drilling on City-owned land in Kern River Oil Field in Kern County, California.

In 2013 John Avalos updated the City's Sanctuary City status by passing the Due Process for All Ordinance in response to the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's Secure Communities or S-Comm program.

In 2016, John Avalos introduced legislation to set a common standard between San Francisco's landmark Sanctuary City Ordinance and the Due Process for All Ordinance.

John Avalos's office funded neighborhood planning efforts that led to the City setting aside land for transit-oriented affordable housing.

John Avalos supported District 11 community efforts to develop urban agriculture and community gardening projects.

In other district initiatives, John Avalos helped foster community-led grantmaking programs; neighborhood art projects in which neighborhood artists created murals, public plazas, and sculptures; and new walkways, stairs, and pathways in neighborhood parks and open spaces.

In 2010, John Avalos passed legislation affirming the Ocean Avenue Community Benefit Initiative, supporting years of community effort and setting Ocean Ave on a stronger trajectory of sustainable neighborhood serving economic growth.

John Avalos worked with the Association of California Communities for Empowerment to occupy homes where households face evictions after struggling to modify their mortgages.

In 2012, John Avalos began the city's process of studying the creation of a public bank.

In 2016, San Francisco supervisors unanimously passed legislation by John Avalos cutting ties with Wells Fargo, following the bank's "phony accounts" scandal.

John Avalos was married to Karen Zapata, a public school teacher, and they have two children.