Victorious Brown Pledges to Reward S.F.

Emerging victorious from a bruising reelection campaign, Mayor Willie Brown promised Wednesday to tackle many of the issues challenger Tom Ammiano raised during their hard-fought race.

“I want to meet your expectations,” Brown told supporters after becoming the first mayor in 16 years to win reelection. “You want and deserve an opportunity for everybody to live in an affordable city, and this administration is going to give you that.”

Addressing concerns of voters who told pollsters that they found him arrogant and remote, Brown promised he would set his agenda for the next four years with the help of a committee representing “a broad base of San Franciscans.” He said he will appoint the committee within days and unveil its proposals in his state of the city address in January.

The mayor listed his priorities as finding ways to build affordable housing, repairing the city’s antiquated water and sewage infrastructure and tackling the problems of thousands of homeless people sleeping on city streets.

While Brown celebrated, Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan remained in a virtual dead heat with challenger Bill Fazio, a former district attorney, as the vote count continued Wednesday. Hallinan held a 425-vote lead with all the precincts counted, but 14,000 provisional ballots were still to be tallied. Election officials said it could take a week to determine the winner. Turnout, at nearly 47% of eligible voters, was slightly higher than city election officials had predicted.

Ammiano conceded defeat early Wednesday, but pledged to keep pushing Brown to adopt a living wage for San Francisco workers, increase the supply of affordable housing and reduce rental evictions.

After shaking the political establishment with a write-in campaign that forced Brown into a runoff, the onetime school teacher and stand-up comedian vowed to remain a political force as he serves out his last year as president of the Board of Supervisors.

With the city switching to district elections next year to elect its 11 supervisors, Ammiano said the coalition of tenants, young people, renters and those he said “have had no voice” will work to elect candidates and challenge Brown’s grip on City Hall.

“San Francisco has been transformed,” Ammiano said in a statement Wednesday. “It is clear that City Hall can no longer afford to ignore the voices of working residents in favor of lobbyists and special interests.”

Pundits agreed that Ammiano’s grass-roots campaign will have a lasting impact on the city.

“Ammiano certainly still remains a force,” said pollster David Binder. “Out of 11 districts, he won four, and you could argue that candidates loyal to him will have a better chance in district elections than Ammiano did in a citywide race.”

Brown, aided by big-spending political action committees put together by business interests, labor unions and mainstream gay political clubs, successfully painted Ammiano as a far-left candidate who would split the city and raise taxes if elected, Binder said.

“Money really is everything,” Binder said. “When there is a section of the electorate totally up for grabs, as conservative voters were here, and they are really unhappy with both options, the messages from both sides make a difference.”

Brown pounded home his message by spending more than $3 million on his campaign. Political action committees spent $1.3 million on his behalf, according to campaign finance reports filed with the city’s ethics committee. Ammiano raised only about $300,000 during his six-week run.

Precinct breakdowns of the votes showed Brown capturing a substantial majority from Republican and conservative voters, as well as from homeowners, African Americans and Asian Americans.

“Ammiano was unable to move outside of the core base he had in November of gays and the progressive white community on the east side of the city,” Binder said. “He lost almost all of the north side, the south side and the west side of the city.”

Ammiano said Wednesday he will try to “close the loopholes” that allow political action committees to spend unlimited funds to support a candidate. The city has passed ordinances in the past to limit such expenditures, but they have been thrown out by courts as unconstitutional restraints on free speech.

Analysts speculated about how Brown, 65, will spend the next four years. Term limits will prevent him from running for mayor again, and “if you look at the political horizon, where does a man with his very far-left record go?” said Supervisor Mark Leno, a Brown political ally.

Leno dismissed the fears of those who said during the election that Brown might become unresponsive if he no longer had to worry about reelection.

Brown’s 60%-40% win over Ammiano was “both a resounding endorsement and a wake-up call” for the mayor. “He has been given another four years, another chance to express his love and appreciation for San Francisco.”

Leno joked that Brown’s vanity alone will compel him to build a legacy of accomplishment during his final term in the city’s top job.

“This is a man who can’t leave the house in the morning without his shoes perfectly shined,” Leno said. “He will redouble his efforts on housing and homelessness--the city’s most daunting challenges.”