Ramping up a cause in S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO — Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier sits in this city's ornate board chambers and gazes up a steep set of stairs leading to the president's speaking dais.

"Five stairs," she says quietly. "That's the mountain."

Alioto-Pier, 39, has been paralyzed from the waist down since a childhood skiing accident. But her disability hasn't kept the scion of one of the city's most powerful political families from public service -- following her grandfather, former Mayor Joseph Alioto, and her aunt Angela Alioto, a past president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

A supervisor herself since 2004 -- the first to use a wheelchair -- Alioto-Pier has become an advocate for the city's 150,000 disabled residents. She's helped make elections accessible to the blind and assisted voters who have manual dexterity problems. Residents with disabilities turn to her office for help.

Now the battle is personal.

Last month, the board in a 6-5 vote rejected plans to build a wheelchair ramp to the circa-1915 podium, fashioned from rare Manchurian oak. Board critics contended that money for the project, which they estimated at costing $1.1 million because of architectural considerations involving the historic chamber, could be better spent on other services, rather than the benefit of a single politician.

Board opponents bemoaned the city's "liberal guilt." One said the issue was being "rammed down his throat."

Alioto-Pier, who is supported by Mayor Gavin Newsom and disability activists, said the 10-foot ramp's actual cost would be about $100,000, plus $40,000 more for a railing -- a fraction of her opponents' claim. The rest of the $1.1-million price tag would include other upgrades.

What message, Alioto-Pier asked, does it send the disabled when the city's highest perch of power is inaccessible to someone in a wheelchair?

She has promised to sue the city for its alleged violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. And it wouldn't be the first time she's made such a threat: In 1993, as a domestic policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore, she successfully fought for wheelchair access to the White House.

Once you've taken on the West Wing Situation Room, she figured, it's all downhill from there.

"This is worth the battle because it's the law," she said. "I don't want to spend money that shouldn't be spent. But if I need to get a judge to tell San Francisco what it should be doing, I'll do it."