Tom Ammiano -- In His Own Words
Both he, Brown urge APIs to look at their records |
By Janet Dang

On the corner of Mission and 22nd streets in the heart of the Mission District, it’s hard to miss Tom Ammiano’s neighborhood headquarters. The bright-blue building is bedecked with yellow and black posters bearing his name.

Inside, the Board of Supervisors president, whose write-in campaign made political history last month,indicated that he is pumped to do so yet again when he faces Mayor Willie Brown in the Dec. 14 runoff.

In an interview last month, Ammiano said he has much to offer all San Franciscans, including the third of them of Asian descent.

Ammiano wants voters of all colors to know that he’s neither a protester nor the anti-business, “tax and spend liberal” that some have likened him to be.

“I would prefer people look at the sum of my record on my issues rather than one issue,” said Ammiano. He has emphasized that as a homeowner and a father, he can empathize with many of the issues Asian Americans may face.

Still, Ammiano’s fight is an uphill one. Brown has the blessing of at least six of the eight top Asian American elected officials in the city. Among Chinese Americans, nearly 2 of 3 voted for Brown Nov. 2. Only 2.6 percent voted for Ammiano, according to a joint poll by CAVEC and David Binder Research.

In addition, Brown has maintained a strong presence in Chinatown -- in fact, he unofficially kicked off his re-election campaign before hundreds of Chinese Americans at Meriwa Restaurant in Chinatown. Plus, the mayor has made a record number of API appointments -- more than five dozen.

Brown, in an informal meeting Tuesday night with AsianWeek staffers, emphasized that he is the best choice for Asian Americans. “I have had a presence in the Chinese community that’s greater than any other elected official ever. If that’s an indication of who I am and what I am about, there is no question who the Chinese community should vote for.”

However, San Francisco State University political science chair and professor Rich DeLeon said the race isn’t over when it comes to S.F.’s Asian Americans, most of whom are of Chinese descent.

“The Chinese American political community is divided,” said DeLeon, who said he himself is neutral in the race. “It’s definitely not monolithic.” Younger voters, renters, working poor and immigrants are more likely to consider Ammiano, he said. Older Chinese Americans, especially those in the power structure, are more likely to back Brown. Ammiano is “never going to make a dent in the more established and older generation API folks,” DeLeon predicted.

The reason for the disparity, explains CAVEC’s David Lee, comes down to the Chinese-language press, which heavily covers the mayor. “The Chinese news readership is heavily slanted towards older, over 45. [It] covers Brown heavily and has an impact on its readership.”

During his interview late last month, Ammiano stressed his record of championing immigrant rights and social services through his alternative People’s Budgets and holstering tenant rights by supporting tougher restrictions on owner-move-in evictions.

The latter position -- as well as Ammiano’s opposition to the Central Freeway -- are anathema to the conservative Chinese American Democratic Club. Yet it and Central Freeway champion Rose Tsai have endorsed him anyway, saying that the candidate’s stances are offset by his perceived immunity to corruption. As campaign spokeswoman Belinda Griswold puts it: “His reputation as one of the most honest and open and accountable politician to come to City Hall in a long time appeals to voters across the political spectrum.”

Though Ammiano strongly supports rent control, he has of late emphasized the differences between small landlords and large development concerns. “The small landlord has been aced out of the dialogue because of the big-landlord lobbyists,” he said, saying the latter more typically gets the ear of the city’s power structure.

“There are a lot of very compassionate good people who are small landlords. They shouldn’t be lumped in with the big landlords,” Ammiano said. “The tenant activists are aware of that, but I think we need to facilitate more face-to-face talk.”

Such conciliatory language might stem from the fact that a growing number of moderates and conservatives are joining Ammiano’s gay-progressive base.

“The primary reason why we endorsed Tom is because Tom is an honest, straightforward person,” said CADC’s Hayden Lee. “The club went for clean government.”

Though Ammiano enraged business interests with a long-since-dropped suggestion to tax stock transfers at the Pacific Stock Exchange, he has long backed neighborhood businesses over chain stores and large developers.

“I want to encourage new businesses, particularly high-tech businesses,” Ammiano said in his interview. “And I want economic incentive to go to neighborhood and small businesses as well.”

The candidate has also made clear his support for race-based affirmative action and minority-contracting programs, which many of CADC’s members benefit from. Alluding to this year’s FBI probes into the city’s set-aside program, Ammiano said in the interview that city officials “need to make sure that it’s not corrupted.”

Supervisor Leland Yee has been calling for greater scrutiny into minority contracting programs as well. He is one of Ammiano’s strongest allies on the board, though he is officially neutral on the runoff.

“On our civil rights, [Ammiano] has been there,” Yee said. “He has fought for immigrant issues. He has fought for children’s issues. He has fought for schools.”

Ammiano said his 20 years as a school teacher and his stint on the school board from 1990 to 1994 has prepared him to address the concerns of parents and educators.

On the contentious issue of how best to select students at the city’s top schools, Ammiano agreed with the district that “it’s probably good to have a number of factors” determine admission, but said the real problem is not having “enough equity in the schools.”

On other ways to improve schools, he has said, would be to reclassify “live-work” units as residential, thus making their owners accountable for the same package of taxes and fees that homeowners must pay to support local schools. He also suggests a hybrid committee of two supervisors and two Board of Education members.

“You might even want to look at district elections for the school board,” he offered. Ammiano has long championed the district election system to which the city will return next year.

“I definitely want to put neighborhood interest over the special interest patterns that now exist at City Hall,” said the board president, who has also touted his support for stronger sunshine laws and campaign finance reform.

Despite his record, there are perceptions that Ammiano is a short-timer on the Chinese American scene. “I get the sense that he’s perceived as Donnie-come-lately,” said DeLeon.

Last month, Ammiano launched a Chinatown campaign with dozens of APIs and other minority supporters. Asian language pro-Ammiano posters went up in Chinatown, Sunset and the Richmond.

But those efforts seemed almostdwarfed by support Brown has recieved from prominentAsian Americansincluding Supervisor Mabel Teng. In an “open letter the Chinese community,” Teng reiterated that Brown has helped build bridges while Ammiano “has not proven...to be a bridge builder able to bring together differet points of views, ideas and strategies.”

Even as Brown maintains a strong presence in API communities, Ammiano’s supporters say they are confident that API voters, who make up about 18 percent of the S.F. electorate, will see through what they say is window-dressing.

“Individuals have come into Chinatown to our dinners, take a picture, shake our hands,” said Yee. “ I would rather have individuals to have contributed substantively to the qualities of our lives than just simply coming into our community.”