Agnos Takes Oath as S.F. Mayor

Former state Assemblyman Art Agnos took office as San Francisco’s 39th mayor today with a pledge to keep the city from becoming an expensive enclave that locks out the poor and the middle class.

He was inaugurated in ceremonies under the City Hall rotunda attended by 5,000. Agnos, 49, was elected in a runoff by 70% of the vote, an awesome margin in a city famous for its bitter factional disputes. He defeated a candidate backed by the outgoing mayor, Dianne Feinstein. The victory signaled a return to the kind of neighborhood-oriented coalition politics that elected George Moscone, a left-liberal, as mayor in 1975. Feinstein became mayor when Moscone was assassinated in City Hall.