3 Bay Area Gays Win Elections; Domestic Partners Law Approved

San Francisco’s gay community basked Wednesday in its biggest political triumph since the 1970s with enactment of a domestic partners law and the election of two lesbians to the Board of Supervisors and a gay man to the school board.

In Oakland, voters elected state Assemblyman Elihu Harris as its new mayor, while Bay Area voters muddied the future of the San Francisco Giants baseball team.

And in Riverside, controversial county Coroner Raymond L. Carrillo was ousted and two Yucaipa school board members survived a recall vote over textbooks some parents called satanic. Recalls also failed against three members of the Inyo County Board of Supervisors.

The San Francisco vote appears to debunk the belief that gay political strength there has lapsed due to the AIDS epidemic and changing times. Just last year, fundamentalists claimed that gay power was waning in San Francisco after voters repealed a domestic partner law passed by the Board of Supervisors.

Carole Migden, chairwoman of the San Francisco Democratic Party, and civil rights attorney Roberta Achtenberg became the first openly lesbian women elected to the Board of Supervisors. They rode into office as part of a progressive takeover of the board.

Displaying the city’s complex social fabric, Achtenberg was introduced at a Tuesday night victory party by her lover and domestic partner, Municipal Judge Mary Morgan. They are raising a 5 1/2-year-old son together but insist it is irrelevant which of them gave birth to the boy. “Please welcome my son’s other mother, your new supervisor, Roberta Achtenberg!” Morgan said.

Gay schoolteacher and comedian Tom Ammiano surprised most in the city by finishing first in a field of 10 Board of Education candidates. But a more symbolic gay victory was the domestic partners law, which lets unmarried couples register at City Hall.

Unlike the previous law repealed by voters, couples would enjoy none of the legal benefits of marriage. With no cost impact attached, the measure drew 54% of the vote.

A plan to build a new stadium for the Giants in Santa Clara was scotched when several nearby cities declined to approve necessary land and tax measures. San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos said Wednesday that he will explore with Giants owner Bob Lurie the chance of the team remaining in San Francisco.

In Oakland, Harris, 43, defeated a longtime city councilman, Wilson Riles Jr., and will succeed his former political mentor in the mayor’s office, Lionel Wilson.

Voters in the Napa Valley wine country clamped down hard on new development that consumes vineyards and farmland, passing a measure that requires any zone changes on agricultural land to pass a public vote.

Meanwhile, two growth-management initiatives in San Diego were soundly defeated. They were sponsored only lackadaisically by developers, who saw them as a way to head off more stringent controls. Slow-growth activists were opposed.

The job of Riverside County coroner went to a deputy coroner, Scotty D. Hill, after one stormy term for Carrillo. Hailed as a Latino role model when he was elected in 1986, Carrillo--a longtime deputy coroner--proved unable to solve continuing lapses in his department. The more celebrated blunders involved the handling of Liberace’s death and the mistaken cremation of a murder victim.

Yucaipa school board members Steve Miller and Jan Mishodek beat back a recall campaign brought by parents upset with the use of the Impressions reading book. Some parents called the book anti-Christian, but state schools chief Bill Honig came to town to help fight against the recall.

In Inyo County, unhappiness with a water deal struck with Los Angeles was not enough to cause the recall of three supervisors. But incumbent Supervisor H.B. (Lefty) Irwin lost a reelection bid.

Elsewhere around the state, Sacramento voters rejected a plan to combine the city and county into a single large municipal entity. Nearby in Lodi, voters upheld a ban on smoking in restaurants.