Willie Brown Leads in S.F. Mayor Race

Early returns showed Mayor Willie Brown capturing more votes than any of his opponents in his bid to win a second term, but the strong challenge of a write-in candidate slowed ballot-counting to a crawl Tuesday night.

Election officials brought in extra volunteers to count by hand--twice--every ballot with a write-in vote for Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano, who announced his candidacy just three weeks ago. Final results in the hard-fought race were not expected until early today.

With most absentee ballots counted, Brown had 46% of the vote, former Mayor Frank Jordan had 27%, and onetime political consultant Clint Reilly had 19%. No write-in ballots had been tallied late Tuesday.

“It is clear we are going to stay in the lead and that is a good thing,” said Brown spokesman P.J. Johnston.

In the city’s other hotly contested race, Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan was trailing former San Francisco prosecutor Bill Fazio, who had 48% of the vote, early absentee ballots showed. Hallinan had 31%.

If no candidate wins 50% plus one of the votes in either contest, there will be a runoff Dec. 14.

According to absentee returns, a city ballot measure that would authorize a $299-million bond issue to rebuild the city’s Laguna Honda Hospital had 71% of the vote. The measure needed a yes vote from 66% of voters to pass. Voters also appeared headed toward approving the rebuilding of the earthquake-damaged Central Freeway and banning banks here from double-charging fees for the use of ATM machines.

In municipal races elsewhere, the controversial initiative by actor-developer Fess Parker to put a new luxury hotel on the Santa Barbara waterfront was headed for defeat by a 2-1 margin. With nearly all the ballots counted, 65% of voters rejected the measure.

Parker took the unusual route of putting his hotel permit directly before voters in Proposition S99, in the most expensive campaign ever in Santa Barbara. “The voters of Santa Barbara clearly sent a message,” said Tim Allison, co-chairman of the No on S opposition group. “They may like Fess Parker, but they love Santa Barbara.”

In three eastern Bay Area suburbs, voters appeared to be rejecting anti-growth measures that would require public votes for virtually all new housing developments. Early returns showed initiatives in Livermore and Pleasanton being decisively defeated. San Ramon’s measure lost narrowly.

South of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay voters approved a measure that would limit residential growth in the city to 1% a year.

San Francisco’s election gained national attention as Brown, the longtime speaker of the Assembly and one of California’s best-known politicians, endured an unexpectedly tough fight for a second term in a city enjoying an economic boom.

The charismatic Brown saw his popularity sink as voters expressed frustration about the city’s traffic troubles, homeless people sleeping on streets, the ailing municipal transportation system and soaring property prices.

In a series of debates, he was hammered by Jordan and Reilly, who accused Brown of cronyism and alleged that City Hall was making too many concessions to developers.

Polls a week ago showed Jordan and Reilly in a three-way tie with Ammiano for second place. But a weekend survey of likely voters showed Ammiano alone in second place with 20% of the vote to 31% for Brown.

“I think Ammiano has become the lightning rod for the protest vote,” said San Francisco pollster David Binder, who said his poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. “We have a lot of people in San Francisco who look at politics as a blood sport and any time they have the opportunity to stir up the pot and make a loud statement, they’ll do it.”

Binder and other political observers said Ammiano’s resonance with voters was unprecedented for a write-in candidate in San Francisco, where mayoral campaigns routinely cost more than $1 million.

This was the costliest campaign in city history, and yet Ammiano--a stand-up comedian and gay activist--spent only $15,000. An all-volunteer staff ran the effort, operating out of a cabaret on the edge of the Castro, bastion of the city’s politically powerful gay community.

More than 300 euphoric Ammiano supporters packed the cabaret Tuesday night, dancing to music provided by two live bands as they waited for returns.

“Ammiano is a man of the people,” said Trina Robbins, an Ammiano volunteer. “He’ll be a mayor who can make us laugh.”

Ammiano’s shoestring campaign stood in sharp contrast to those of the three major candidates.

Reilly began running television ads, introducing himself to voters, months before anyone else was campaigning. He bombarded voters with thick booklets outlining his plans for overhauling the municipal transportation system and dealing with the city’s ongoing homeless problem.

Maria T. Torres, 57, a 40-year resident of the city, said she voted for Reilly, “because I liked what he had to say about the homeless. It’s gotten out of hand. There are more homeless here than any other city.”

Brown locked in early endorsements from the city’s Democratic Party and labor unions. He sent dozens of mailers and had staffers making repeat calls to likely voters. Last week, the mayor got a little help from President Clinton, who recorded a phone message urging Democratic voters to support Brown. Brown spent more than $2 million on the race. The Democratic Party and other groups spent $1 million more on his behalf.

Jordan, the former police chief Brown ousted four years ago, spent about $400,000 on his effort to regain office. He hammered away at what he said were Reilly’s character flaws and allegations of corruption at Brown’s City Hall.

Throughout the campaign, voters told pollsters they were unhappy with the choices. When Ammiano finally decided to run, his grass-roots approach seemed to strike a chord.

Ammiano, who served on the local school board before becoming a supervisor, portrayed himself as a man of the people--the only supervisor who commutes to work daily by bus, a champion of rent control and of the myriad social programs that San Franciscans say make their city among the nation’s most compassionate toward the down-and-out.

Michael Goico, an Internet Web site developer, said he voted for Brown because he feared Ammiano, whom he called a good supervisor who “would make a terrible mayor.” Goico said he opposed Ammiano’s strong support of rent control.

Even if Brown is forced into the Dec. 14 runoff, political observers said, no mayoral candidate who has placed first in the general election has ever been beaten in the subsequent runoff.

Times staff writer Rone Tempest, researcher Norma Kaufman and correspondents Sam Bruchey and Sally Ann Connell contributed to this story.