With the departure of Superintendent Bill Rojas now imminent, Mayor Willie Brown has apparently come up with whom he says is a perfect candidate: Supervisor Leland Yee, who stands to be Brown's biggest threat if he challenges him for mayor this year.

For his part, Yee says he's not terribly interested, though he wouldn't rule out the possibility last week.

On the face of it, there's a lot to recommend Yee to head up a district that is 50 percent Asian American: A child psychologist by training, Yee has served as a college professor and a nonprofit administrator. He has honed his reputation as a fiscal watchdog for a decade, first through eight years on the school board and two years on the Board of Supervisors.

Taking the superintendent's seat now also would buy Yee a few more years to decide what move to make to ensure his success after district elections return in 2000. Of course, there's no law saying that Yee can't stay where he is in Noe Valley, where he lives in a four-unit building with his mother and other family members. Yet he could imperil his political survivability by staying put - the percentage of Asian American voters in District 8 is under 10 percent, and Yee's percentages in that district fell below his citywide averages back in 1996.

Yee would likely have better prospects in the Sunset's District 4 or the Excelsior's District 11 (32 percent and 27 percent Asian American, respectively).

Yee would be able to bow out gracefully from a nasty campaign fight in which he'd be the underdog, and Brown, meanwhile, could make his seventh appointment to the 11-member board, thus weakening the opposition of Tom Ammiano and Sue Bierman. However, a Superintendent Yee would have a citywide bully pulpit far more powerful than being part of an 8-3 minority on the Board of Supervisors -and he could in fact become a lightning rod for Brown opponents. That would not be good for Brown. Moreover, Yee might find the superintendent's seat a less favorable spot from which to launch a mayoral bid in 2003. That would not be good for Yee.

In any case, appointing Yee as superintendent would not be a slam dunk. It would take four of seven votes; one less than that controlled by the anti-Rojas contingency of Dan Kelly, Jill Wynns, and Eddie Chin. But that's not to say Yee couldn't get a fourth from among the others: Mary Hernandez, Juanita Owens, Steve Phillips and Frank Chong. The latter in particular would be under pressure to appoint the district's first Asian American supervisor, even though Yee endorsed Chin, not him.

WAGING WAR OVER THE LIVING WAGE

In response to whether he'd support Board President Tom Ammiano's living wage ordinance this Monday, Yee answered, "You're darn right." The duo and Supervisor Bierman are considered solidly in favor of the $11-minimum wage proposal for city contractors; the eight others are being lobbied through efforts like postcard writing campaigns.

The living wage legislation could be politically dicey for Asian American politicians, at least two of whom have taken counterintuitive stances. Yee, for example, is siding with his most powerful ally on the matter, but that means he's siding against many Asian American contractors -his political base at the Chinese American Democratic Club. Mabel Teng, on the other hand, has declared that she is "not very happy" with the proposal, sounding almost capitalist as she told a Golden Gate Heights audience that "we should let the marketplace determine what that wage should be." Teng's re-election bid was supported by Chinatown Community Development Corp., On Lok and other Chinatown nonprofits who do contract work for the city - work that might cost them more if they have to give all their workers a raise.

FRY ME: E-mail me at samson@sfindependent.com or call at 415-826-1100, ext. 23.