San Francisco, Brown Still Bask in Honeymoon Glow

Mayor Willie Brown is hot these days. On the street, people treat him more like a movie star than a mayor, coming up to shake his hand or get his autograph. Diners applaud when he walks into a restaurant. TV hosts from David Brinkley to David Letterman put him on the air.

Five months after becoming San Francisco’s first black mayor, the former Democratic Assembly speaker remarkably remains the object of adulation. The honeymoon usually accorded newly elected politicians has become, for Brown, an extended love-fest.

It is as if his 31-year career in the Legislature was merely preparation for his true calling: presiding over America’s most liberal city. Regularly vilified by his foes when he was speaker, Brown now revels in his newfound popularity.

“Currently, the mayor is a celebrity and is the celebrity,” Brown reflected recently over lunch. “It’s really fun. I don’t think it’s a honeymoon at all. I think it’s the natural order of things.”

Brown’s popularity has given him a chance to consolidate power as no San Francisco mayor has in years. He has doled out jobs and appointments, including three seats on the Board of Supervisors, rewarding his friends and securing new allies. An upturn in the local economy has allowed Brown to broaden his support by introducing the city’s biggest budget ever.

Brown and his backers cast the 62-year-old politician as a populist mayor who is fighting discrimination and bringing fairness to city government. His foes worry he will use his power to reward his political supporters, campaign contributors and former law clients.

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But criticism of the mayor is muted compared to the verbal punishment that was dished out over the past eight years to Brown’s two predecessors, Frank Jordan and Art Agnos. Whether real or imagined, some fear retribution if they speak out against Brown.

“He has 31 years of political experience in Sacramento, and he’s using every bit of it,” said Jordan, who lost to Brown in December. “But right now it’s a one-man team. There are no checks and balances in the system. He gives the sense that he is in total control, but total control means dictatorship to me. I just hope the citizens come out ahead.”

Big-city troubles such as the deteriorating transit system, the large homeless population and the bloated city bureaucracy loom as challenges for him.

Brown acknowledges that tests of his leadership await but says the public’s goodwill offers him a rare opportunity to solve some of the city’s long-standing problems, such as overhauling the civil service system.

“I have the license to initiate,” he said. “Whether or not I can ultimately accomplish things remains to be seen.”

Long respected in the state Capitol for his brilliance and cunning, Brown has charmed San Francisco with his grace and good humor.

Nowadays, the impeccably attired mayor with his trademark Borsalino hat cannot walk a block in San Francisco without someone calling out his name in greeting. After he threw out the first pitch at the San Francisco Giants’ home opener, he signed more autographs than Barry Bonds.

His high-profile approach to running San Francisco seems to be paying off: Polls show his popularity has been rising steadily since his election victory in December.

One independent survey conducted by veteran San Francisco pollster David Binder last month found that 68% of the voters approve of the mayor while 13% disapprove--numbers close to those of Ronald Reagan at the peak of his presidential popularity and a phenomenal showing at a time when politicians are decidedly unpopular. Even San Francisco Republicans rated Brown favorably.

“I haven’t seen numbers like this on a [San Francisco] politician in all my years in polling,” Binder said. “This is something special.”

Brown attributes his early success in part to a strategy of making San Francisco’s diverse groups feel like they belong--especially those who have been excluded in the past.

“People can tolerate tough times and shortages, but what they resent more than anything else is not being included,” said Brown, recalling the discrimination he suffered during his youth in segregated Mineola, Texas. “I’m really building a spirit in this city that I don’t think this city has ever seen before, and I’m including everybody, every age, every color, every creed.”

For example, the mayor signed a law allowing civil ceremonies for homosexual partners, then performed a highly publicized mass wedding ceremony for gays and lesbians at City Hall.

He appointed Fred Lau as police chief--the first Chinese American to hold the post. He named a Latino, Emilio Cruz, as his chief of staff. And he appointed Robert Demmons as fire chief--the first black to head that department. Demmons’ appointment was especially notable because as president of the Black Firefighters Assn., he battled discrimination in the department for more than a decade and won a court desegregation order that is still in effect.

For the 11-member Board of Supervisors--the equivalent here of a city council--Brown picked lesbian lawyer Leslie Katz, black minister Amos Brown (no relation) and the panel’s first Japanese American, Michael Yaki. The mayor said he hopes Katz and Yaki, both 34, represent a new generation of leadership for the city.

Brown also can take partial credit for the victory in March of a ballot measure to build a new downtown stadium for the Giants. Four earlier stadium measures had been defeated, but Brown helped organize the campaign and endorsed the proposal, which won by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.

Temporarily, at least, the mayor’s openness and exuberance have won over many of his harshest foes.

“It’s been a bravura performance,” said one politico who campaigned against Brown during the mayoral election last year. “People feel better about San Francisco, because they feel good about Willie. It’s a hard city to run, but he’s doing it well.”

Since taking office in January, the trim, slightly built Brown quickly has become one of the nation’s most prominent big-city mayors. When he went to Washington earlier this year, he stayed overnight at the White House as a guest of the Clintons.

Brown’s foes acknowledge the mayor’s charm but complain that he is serving as little more than the city’s master of ceremonies.

“He’s a colorful mayor with a big hat,” said Arthur Bruzzone, chairman of San Francisco’s tiny Republican Party chapter. “He greets the people, and the city moves on its own.”

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Bruzzone said Brown has proved himself adept at political maneuvering--as he did in Sacramento--but has not accomplished anything of substance.

“In the end, San Francisco is a small town, and he has been able to come in and wow them with his brilliance,” the commercial real estate broker said. “There’s not much you can criticize him for, because there is not much that he’s done.”

Brown also draws bad reviews from advocates for the homeless. Paul Boden, coordinator of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the city’s treatment of the homeless remains as hardhearted as it ever was under Jordan. Despite Brown’s promise to treat the homeless differently, Boden said, police still kick them out of doorways and seize their shopping carts.

“Liberals seem to dislike homeless people as much as conservatives in this day and age,” he said. “Protecting the civil rights of homeless people is not a priority for this administration.”

Some residents in the western, more conservative Sunset District complain that they are being ignored as the mayor shapes his administration and rewards his supporters. They say Brown’s policy of inclusion does not necessarily extend to communities that went for Jordan in the election.

“He’s trying to govern as he did in Sacramento,” said Michael Salerno, a Sunset shop owner and community activist. “I don’t think that’s healthy.” Yet even Salerno praised Brown’s leadership: “He’s getting an A rating. I think he’s doing a good job. I just want to see him bring the city together.”

County Supervisor Angela Alioto, a onetime rival for mayor, contends that Brown’s rapid consolidation of power on the Board of Supervisors has stifled dissenting views. The board, once a quirky, chaotic center of controversy, has suddenly become “boring,” she said.

“The majority of the members of the board have been placed here or gotten here through his [Brown’s] help,” said Alioto, daughter of former Mayor Joseph Alioto. “That being the case, there is very little to discuss. Either he is a master and he’s made everybody happy, or they’re just afraid.”

The mayor also has been lucky. The city’s economy has been recovering and its budget deficit this year was the smallest in years. The city’s grand new main library, long under construction, opened this spring.

The looming issue of San Francisco’s deteriorating bus system has not come to a head. And Brown dodged a potential crisis when the Clinton administration stepped in and took control of the city’s poorly run public housing agency.

If there is one thing Brown wants to be remembered for as mayor, he says, it is fairness. “That’s the tone I want to set,” he said. “That’s the goal and that’s clearly what I want to be the hallmark of this administration.”

Recently, he held an open house on a Saturday morning and invited members of the public to come and tell him what was on their minds. People began lining up outside City Hall before dawn to see him.

Brown listened to the grievances of 29 citizens while members of his staff met with more than 75 others, fielding complaints ranging from the poor quality of bus service to the potential loss of urban park land.

Among the petitioners were four employees of the city’s Department of Public Works. None of them knew each other but all came to complain of racial or sexual discrimination within the department.

“At the risk of being fired, they had documented evidence of unfair treatment and blatant favoritism,” Brown said. Then he chortled: “What they don’t know is I’m hiring a gay guy to head the Department of Public Works, and the second in command will be a black guy.”

Invited to attend the recent Alcatraz Island premiere of the movie “The Rock,” Brown said he learned by chance that one police official had held the post of liaison with the movie studios for 16 years. During that time, the mayor discovered, the official allowed only officers from the virtually all-white, all-male motorcycle detail to work on film productions.

Brown immediately ordered that the coveted post be rotated and that the official be reassigned.

Because he has cast himself as a champion of the downtrodden, people throughout the city turn to Brown for help in solving their problems.

Last month, more than 300 angry Mission High School students marched on City Hall and demanded to speak to the mayor. They were protesting the San Francisco Unified School District’s decision to remove their principal and two top administrators because of the school’s poor academic performance.

Brown was meeting with a dozen advocates for the elderly when he got word a delegation of protesters was waiting in his outer office. Without a moment’s hesitation he grabbed his hat, took the group outside and addressed the entire crowd. Pledging to help carry the students’ message to school officials, the mayor quickly turned the protest march into a Willie Brown pep rally.

“We love Willie, we love Willie,” the students chanted.

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Then the mayor marched with them to school district headquarters and arranged a meeting of student leaders with the school board president. When Brown left, students crowded around him as if he were a rock star, getting his autograph on $5 bills and the backs of their hands.

“It should never have gotten to the point where the students had to march down here,” Brown told one school board member by telephone later in the day. “This was terrible mismanagement.”

That evening, he went to the school board’s meeting and spoke passionately on behalf of the students, whom he praised for taking action to improve the quality of their education. “We can no longer make decisions for people,” he lectured the board. “We have to make decisions with people.”

For Brown, the students’ protest was a reminder of his own high school days and his fight long ago for a decent education. He also recognized a force of potential young voters he can draw to his side, counteracting the ill will he expects to generate from his foes as his term progresses.

“For every enemy that I make, I hope those 300 kids register to vote, so it will be 300 to one,” he said. “That’s where the future is.”

When he first considered running for mayor last year, old allies and family members--including a brother who is an assistant city manager in Tacoma, Wash.--discouraged him, saying he would be frustrated with the lack of resources and the constant municipal penny-pinching.

But forced out of the Assembly by term limits, Brown since has concluded that being in charge of a city is better than serving in Sacramento. The only major drawback, he said, is he doesn’t get to travel as much as he once did.

“In the world of politics, if you had your choice, a mayor’s job is preferable to a state legislator’s,” he said. “The fact that I can’t get to Los Angeles as often as I would like is the only disadvantage. The rest of it is a plus. You’re really doing the people’s business. You’re making policy and you’re implementing policy and you’re seeing the results of it overnight.”