Peter Robert Arrigoni

July 10, 1931 - December 18, 2018

Peter R. Arrigoni, a former stockbroker, Marin County Supervisor, Chairman of the Marin Community Foundation and manager of the Marin Builders Association, was a native of San Francisco who lived most of his life in Marin. His father, Pietro S. Arrigoni, founded a famous restaurant, in San Francisco called New Joe’s, and in his early years Pete Jr. worked there as a bus boy, waiter and bartender.

He first found prominence in the county as an AllConference football player the press nicknamed “Pistol Pete” when he attended the College of Marin in 1949-50. Prior to that he had played football when he attended St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco, where he was selected All-City. He lived in Marin in Fairfax with his grandfather, Dante Divita, who many years before had left San Francisco because of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

Pete joined the Coast Guard and served in the Pacific from 1952-1955. In 1956 he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers to play professional football after playing football for the University of Arizona in Tucson. At the university he met art student and tennis player, Patricia Larry. After dating for a year, they eloped and were married in Nogalis, Mexico in 1956. That same year the university baseball team he pitched for played in the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska reaching the finals.

Pete graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Science degree and took a job in San Francisco as a stockbroker with J. Barth and Company. When that company merged with Dean Witter, he became a Vice-President in sales at their Maritime Plaza office in San Francisco. He stayed in this business for twenty years.

His political career began with an appointment to the Fairfax Parks and Recreation Commission in the early 1960s. During those years he managed to build two tennis courts for the town and provide a recreation plan.

He won election to the Fairfax City Council in 1963 and served as mayor in 1966-1967. In 1968 he was drafted by a group of conservationists in Marin led by Roger Kent and Elizabeth and Al Gatov to run for the Marin County Board of Supervisors representing Ross Valley in the Second District. His opponent was the powerful Chairman if the Board, Ernest Kettenhofen, who wanted to build a major freeway to West Marin and open up that part of the county to big development. Arrigoni won every single precinct in that election in a landslide victory and the freeway, an extension of Highway 17, was never built.

In Arrigoni’s second election in 1971 he defeated both Barbara Boxer (who won a seat on the Board of Supervisors when Arrigoni retired, then served in the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate) and William Filante (later an elected member of the College of Marin Board and the California Assembly).

Arrigoni retired after two terms on the Marin County Board of Supervisors, then joined the Marin Builders Exchange (now Association) as General Manager, a position he held for 25 years.

Arrigoni’s community activities included years of coaching Little League baseball teams. Also an avid outdoorsman, Pete spent his life fishing and hunting with a large group of friends and family. He also served on the board of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and the Beryl Buck Institute of Education.

In 1987 he was appointed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors to the Marin Community Foundation Board of Directors which was created to manage the billion dollar Buck Trust. He served for two terms and was chairman in 1995. In 2017 he was honored by the Marin County Fairfax Library branch when they named their community room after him. When in office he had been able to stop a shopping center and get the library built. In December 2018 the Native Sons of the Golden West, Fairfax Parlor 307, named their club house at the Canon Swim and Tennis Club after Arrigoni who had been instrumental in purchasing the property and running the club successfully for several decades.

Peter Arrigoni passed away of reoccurring lymphoma in his own home in Fairfax with his wife, Pat, and friends at his side. He is also survived by his son James “Jim” (Sylvia) of San Anselmo, son Robert “Bob” (Bettina) of Sierra Vista, AZ; granddaughter, Samantha Rose Arrigoni of Novato.; brother Robert V. Arrigoni (Dianne) of Nicasio; aunt Rita Burrafato of Sonoma; plus nieces and nephew including Victoria Arrigoni of Wenchester, MA ( Austin Whitman); Alicia Arrigoni of McLean, VA (Will Jamieson); and Peter S. Arrigoni of Portland, Oregon (Kelli); and cousin Gina Burrafato of Novato. He is predeceased by his mother, Rose Divita and father, Pietro S. Arrigoni of San Francisco and Fairfax.

Services will be held at St. Rafael’s, 1104 First Ave. (upper end of A St.), San Rafael, CA. on Thursday, December 27 at 11:AM.