Joe Alioto Veronese
Encyclopedia
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
candidate for California State Senate
California State Senate
The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. There are 40 state senators. The state legislature meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The Lieutenant Governor is the ex officio President of the Senate and may break a tied vote...
(District 3) including San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, Marin
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
, and Sonoma
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
Counties. He withdrew from the race on March 7, 2008.
Family and personal life
Veronese was born in San Francisco, California in 1973. Named after his grandfather, Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, Veronese is the son of Angela AliotoAngela Alioto
Angela Alioto is an attorney, a politician, and a member of the Secular Franciscan order and Democratic Party. She is a member of one of the best known political families in San Francisco, and her family is generally associated with the liberal democratic side of the city's...
and Adolfo Veronese, owner and operator of several restaurants in San Francisco and Marin County.
Veronese married Julie Gilman in San Francisco on February 19, 2006 at the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi.
He owns a Sonoma County Vineyard and wine company producing Carneros Pinot Noir, bottled under the label Verotto.
Police Commissioner
Veronese became involved in law enforcement when, upon graduation from UCLA and the San Francisco Police Academy, he was hired by District Attorney Terence HallinanTerence Hallinan
Terence Hallinan is an American attorney and politician from San Francisco, California. He is the second of six sons born to leftist attorney Vincent Hallinan and his wife Vivian....
as the youngest senior criminal investigator in the history of the office. Veronese worked in the fraud bureau and helped develop and enforce a diversion program to prevent the incarceration of poor families. Veronese also led a unit of investigators in the street-level enforcement against food-stamp trafficking for guns and narcotics.
Veronese was appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission by Mayor Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
in 2004. He has worked to reform the Department through increased transparency and accountability to the public and the communities the department serves. Among other important reforms, Veronese brokered a resolution with the police officers association to release misconduct records to the public without violating the rights of police officers. Under his watch, the police commission adopted the first-ever Early Warning System, a multi-million dollar system of tracking and correcting police misconduct.
The Commission has overseen the hiring of 350 new police officers, an increase of nearly 13% of the force. Veronese has advocated for an increase of foot patrol and a greater community empowerment with the Department. Veronese is currently working with members of the Department to institute the first-ever Green audit and phased mandated involving the City’s largest vehicle fleet. He is also currently working to replace the San Francisco’s Unified School Districts ROTC program with a Police Recruits program to promote civic involvement of school children and public safety in San Francisco schools.
In April 2007, Veronese cast the deciding vote to elect Theresa Sparks
Theresa Sparks
Theresa Sparks is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and was a candidate for San Francisco Supervisor for District 6 in the November 2010 election. She is a former president of the San Francisco Police Commission and former CEO of Good Vibrations...
as President of San Francisco Police Commission. Sparks became the first transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
head of any city commission in the nation.
Civil rights attorney
A graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law, Veronese is a practicing civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
attorney admitted in all courts in the State of California, United States District Court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
He has successfully litigated numerous cases as a partner in the Law Firm of Mayor Joseph Alioto and Angela Alioto. This includes a recent $25 million verdict against Universal Tobacco Leaf Corporation relating to a fraud whistle-blowing matter that was named one of the Top 100 Verdicts of 2006 by Verdicts Search.
The practice focuses on a wide variety of employment claims, including a $132 million race discrimination verdict against Interstate Brands Corporation, and a $12 million verdict against Mary Kay Cosmetics. Representing employees, he has successfully litigated and resolved cases involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, disabilities, and whistle blower retaliation claims.
Civic engagement
Veronese was chosen by the Mayor of San Francisco to co-chair the San Francisco - Assisi Sister City Committee. The Committee was created by his grandfather Mayor Joseph L. Alioto in 1968 to develop and maintain San Francisco’s relationship with the sister city of Assisi, Italy.In 2001, Veronese was elected Municipal Utility District Director from a field of 23 candidates. This was his first campaign for elective office and was honored by the San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...
as having "The Best First Campaign."
In 2005, Veronese was appointed by California Senator John Burton
John L. Burton
John Lowell Burton is the current Chairman of the California Democratic Party. He is an American politician who served as a Democratic California State Senator from 1996 until 2004, representing the 3rd district. From 1998 until he was forced out of office by term limits in 2004, he served as the...
to the California Commission on Criminal Justice. In this capacity, Veronese has focused on reforming marijuana enforcement practices so the state can use tens of millions of federal dollars to reduce guns, gangs, and violent crimes throughout the state. Also in 2005, Veronese called for the city to investigate alleged misuse of public funds by Gary Delagnes, president of the police union, who was taking a yearly police salary of $100,000 while working full-time for the union;
Delagnes demanded Mayor Newsom fire Veronese.
In April 2006, Veronese was chosen by Mayor Newsom to represent San Francisco in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
at the consistory that raised William Levada
William Levada
William Joseph Levada is an American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Since 2005, he has served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, making him the highest ranking American in the Roman Curia. He was previously the Archbishop of Portland from 1986 to 1995 and...
to the cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
ate; Veronese led a delegation of interfaith leaders of every large religious group in San Francisco to Rome and continues to work with religious groups to find common ground on difficult and controversial issues facing San Francisco. During the consistory, Veronese presented the new cardinal with a seal of the city, and was immediately attacked by the Board of Supervisors, who claimed sole right to present the seal, and who took aim at his doing so to Levada, who supports the official Vatican policy that gay couples should not adopt children — that both the Supervisors and Mayor Newsom condemn.
With the assistance of the CLEAR Project (a San Francisco neighborhood organization committed to strengthening the capacity of young people, parents, seniors and neighborhoods), Veronese helped develop the “SAFE Zone” program, promoting safe streets for children in the City’s crime ridden neighborhoods.
From summer 2004 until recently, Veronese served on the Board of Directors of the Omega Boys Club. The Omega Boys Club is an after-school program for at-risk youth in the African-American Community, promising entry and full financial support through college graduation of at-risk children committed to the club’s ideals: to date, it has sponsored 115 college graduates.