Brown Accepts Wilson Debate Proposal : ‘One of us has to break the stalemate,’ Democratic candidate tells the governor. The two will meet Friday at a public TV station in Sacramento.

Democrat Kathleen Brown broke a months-long stalemate with Republican Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday when she unexpectedly agreed to a one-hour gubernatorial campaign debate over a statewide public television network next Friday.

“The voters of this state cannot go to the polls without seeing the two of us debate the real issues that confront California,” Brown said in a seven-paragraph “Dear Pete” letter that ended: “See you on the 14th--Sincerely, Kathleen Brown.”

Brown, the state treasurer, acted one week after an apparent breakdown in negotiations over various proposed debate formats, dates, times and sites. On Sept. 30, both sides agreed that there was no chance of reaching an agreement and that therefore there would be no debate.

As late as Friday morning, Brown had rejected the public television encounter, arguing that it was like “debating in a box” because of the relatively small audience compared to commercial television stations.

Friday’s letter to Wilson, faxed to his Sacramento campaign headquarters about 3:30 p.m., was a surprise to most observers, who thought the debate issue was settled and buried.

“I want the widest possible exposure for this debate,” Brown wrote. “You apparently do not. One of us has to break the stalemate. I will.”

The governor, just back from a two-day fund-raising trip to Washington and New York, accepted immediately, said Dan Schnur, his campaign spokesman.

The debate will originate from station KVIE, the public television station in Sacramento, between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The two candidates will be asked questions by a panel of political reporters. The debate is expected to be carried live on public television stations in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, and perhaps other areas. (The Los Angeles public station is KCET Channel 28.)

The telecast will also be made available to commercial television stations for tape-delay broadcast, Wilson aides said.

After months of laying down scores of precise conditions for the debate, Wilson forces issued an ultimatum Sept. 30: Accept the KVIE debate offer or there would be no debates. Although Brown had earlier expressed a willingness to debate any place, any time, her campaign rejected the take-it-or-leave-it offer. At that point, Brown aides indicated that they would just as soon have the issue to use against Wilson as they would to debate under conditions they did not consider advantageous to them.

Behind the scenes, Brown aides continued efforts to arrange a debate venue that was acceptable to both Brown and Wilson, said Kim Wardlaw, who was head of Brown’s debate negotiating team. When all those efforts failed, Brown agreed, essentially, to Wilson’s week-old offer.

“This is being a statesman and recognizing that both campaigns should just put bickering on the debates aside,” Wardlaw said. “If all Wilson is willing to do is a debate he hopes nobody will see, that’s too bad. But we think the voters deserve a debate, so we’ll do it.”

Wardlaw said Brown would like to hold additional debates, specifically a meeting in San Francisco sponsored by the California Broadcasters Assn. on Oct. 16. Wilson aides had no immediate comment, but political experts did not expect the governor to want more than the one meeting.

Generally challengers benefit from the exposure they get on a debate. Last week’s Wilson ultimatum was considered part of a typical front-runner’s strategy: Avoid debates if you can get away with it, or hold one at the most.

Wilson led Brown by nine points among likely voters in the most recent Los Angeles Times Poll and by nearly that in the Field Poll.

The developments also came the day after Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the challenger for her seat, Republican Rep. Mike Huffington, debated on the Larry King show on CNN. Schnur said more people would see the Wilson-Brown debate over public television than had access to the Senate debate.

Huffington and Feinstein are attempting to negotiate further meetings before the Nov. 8 election. Feinstein debated Wilson once in 1990 when she was the Democratic nominee for governor.

Earlier Friday, Brown embarked on a sales blitz on behalf of her 62-page economic plan, which she said would revitalize the depressed California economy and pay off the state budget debt accumulated during Wilson’s term.

Going from the Pacific Stock Exchange in Los Angeles to Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley, the state treasurer picked up the support of two Nobel Prize laureates in economics and more than 200 California business leaders.

Among them was Stanford economics professor William F. Sharpe, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for economics, who said during the Berkeley rally: “The investment approach in this plan will put California on the road to creating 1 million new jobs.”

At the stock exchange, former Southern California Edison Co. President Michael Peevey said California needs leadership in Sacramento “to rev up jobs.”

Peevey, chairman of a public-private firm developing electric autos, particularly commended the portion of the Brown plan that proposes assistance to defense contractors in converting from being weapons producers to creators of high-tech jobs for the future.

“That’s one of the things I find most exciting,” Peevey said.

Brown’s plan was attacked by Wilson forces as basically mimicking actions Wilson had taken or proposed, or discarded as unworkable.

Times staff writer Amy Wallace also contributed to this story.