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Name Calling and Dung Dropping CALLED ON THE CARPET: In the last edition of Asian Week, former DA candidate and possible supervisor candidate Bill Fazio threw down a gauntlet and called Supervisor Mabel Teng a “carpetbagger” for living in District 7, which includes neighborhoods like West of Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Heights, Lake Merced. Fazio was incorrect since Teng has lived at her Golden Gate Heights home for more than eight years. Fazio himself has lived in his Merced Manor home longer than Teng. Although he’s contemplating a run, Fazio’s chances of beating Teng this November are not as simple as reading the two-to-one victory margin he received for District Attorney last December in the conservative 7th District. The former prosecutor shouldn’t take the district’s lack of Asian American votes (less than 20 percent) as a disadvantage for Teng, who has resisted moving out and emphasizing that it’s home to her kids and family. Fazio’s supervisor candidacy is not like a one-on-one contest like the DA’s runoff. Fazio ran against Hallinan, who was under regular siege by San Francisco Chronicle and whose progressive support was divided for the November primary. Unlike Hallinan’s unpopularity in District 7 last December, Teng was re-elected in November 1998 and faired well in the district, coming in third to Supervisor Ammiano and Gavin Newsom, who will be running out of Mission District 9 and Pacific Heights/Marina District 2. Anti-Willie Brown sentiment had dragged Teng’s board president hopes and instead helped Ammiano get elected president by a citywide popular vote. Ammiano, who is the most progressive member on the Board, picked up surprising support in some of the more conservative and moderate precincts like West of Twin Peaks, Sunset and Richmond. Last December, the district, partially scared by Ammiano’s politics, reversed course and supported Brown 71 percent to 29 percent. During his Jan. 8 and Dec. 30 remarks, Brown made it clear that preserving his Board of Supervisors majority to implement his policies. Part of his majority will be Teng, who was his pick for board president in November 1998. Who is elected board president among the eleven district supervisors this November will either make the mayor a “lame duck” or move his agenda forward in the next four years. That supervisor will not only be able to put votes for president, but put the votes together for the mayor’s legislation. Teng will likely have Brown support and his allies for re-election this November. If re-elected with a Brown majority on the Board, she will be a viable candidate for President. ASIA, NOT ROSE GARDEN At the Dec. 30 Asia Garden victory party hosted by the Chinese Six Companies and commissioners Benny Yee, Pius Lee, Florence Fang and Julie Lee, Brown was praised for bringing together disparate elements of the Chinese American community leadership, such as Chinese Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Rose Pak and Housing Commissioner Julie Lee, who have been competing for the mayor’s favor. But Pak was left out in the cold. While chatting with Police Chief Fred Lau outside Asia Garden, she waited for the mayor. However, the mayor ended up staying two hours at the fete attended by 600 people. Earlier, dinner insiders had seen Pak eyeing a seat next to the mayor near the dais of head tables. Before she plopped herself in the seat, the music stopped playing. Instead of Pak, Julie Lee decided to keep the seat warm for dignitary Victor Tsang, the highest Taiwanese consular office in California. The mayor didn’t kiss Pak but he did make up with her the next day at a private New Year’s Eve party. After a few private words with Pak, Brown turned to the crowd and led happy birthday wishes for Pak. It was Julie Lee who asked and got to peck the mayor on the cheek for the new millennium’s sake. WHO DUNG THAT: Francisco Hsieh’s Chinatown Restaurant has become a required stopover for various political figures over the years. Hsieh, for some time, had lived in the same Gough Street apartment building as the mayor, who later moved to Nob Hill. This past election year, the restaurant which overlooks Portsmouth Square took an anti-Brown tilt -- posting huge “Clint Reilly for Mayor” building signs that competed with the huge “Willie Brown for Mayor” signs posted on adjacent buildings over Portsmouth Square and Washington Street. Before the November primary, someone selectively slashed one of Hsieh’s huge Reilly signs, which was next to some other political signs Hsieh posted in Wentworth Alley. At about the same time, Hsieh and his unsuspecting employees almost stuck their fingers in some dung, which covered by newspaper, was heaped on his kitchen-door padlock and on the top of the restaurant’s trash bin in the alley. Hsieh thinks the doo-doo was placed with malicious intent and filed a police report. But who in his right mind would take the time to strategically place the dung? The case so far is unresolved. UNFIT TO PRINT: The latest Chinese American Democratic Club newsletter is calling Sing Tao Daily’s rejection of its December political ad for Tom Ammiano an “embarrassment to democracy. Meanwhile, the Chinese Times and World Journal published the same ad. Sing Tao might take a full page from the San Francisco Independent, which gladly printed a Dec. 7 $6000 full-page “open letter” ad for and by Bill Fazio, who used the space to ask that readers not be “fooled” by the paper’s coverage of his campaign. At the same time, the paper printed a companion full-page “open letter” rebuking Fazio’s charges. With that kind of money, Fazio could have paid for a mailer that might have been critical in his narrow 1800-vote loss to District Attorney Terence Hallinan.
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