November 27, 2002

THE WAY SOME of Bevan Dufty's supporters are trying to play it, the runoff race for the District Eight supervisorial seat is about Israel's policy in the occupied territories, about a budget demonstration at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last year ... about anything but what's it's really about: the Brown machine versus neighborhood interests.

As Savannah Blackwell reports on page 18, no matter how Dufty tries to spin it, the Dec. 10 runoff in the Castro-Noe Valley district is a replay of the key supervisorial races in 2000. The machine's power is on the line: Mayor Willie Brown's operatives realize that defeating Eileen Hansen, the progressive candidate, could deny the progressive/neighborhood forces the eight votes they need on the board to override mayoral vetoes.

The voters in District Eight – the district that first elected Harvey Milk, and later Harry Britt – have always been independent and have always mistrusted machine power. That's why Mark Leno, who narrowly beat Hansen in 2000, moved well away from the mayor during that campaign.

Dufty is now trying to do the same thing. He isn't touting the mayor's endorsement (although Brown is not only backing him but also sending his staff to work for him and helping him raise money). Rather, his campaign is going all out to obscure the real issues and to try to smear Hansen by suggesting that she's too confrontational (because she demonstrated against budget cuts as part of the People's Budget campaign) and that she isn't a strong supporter of Israel (because she disagrees, as do many other progressive Jews, with the current policies of that country's government).

The truth is, Hansen has a long history of community involvement and has the support of almost every progressive group and political leader in town. The tenants back her because they know she can be trusted to side with renters against the big landlords. The public power people back her because they know she has always stood with them against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The people who work on the front lines at San Francisco General Hospital support her because they know she has spent years fighting against heath care cuts.

Who backs Dufty? The landlords, the mayor, and the developers.

If you really want to understand the importance of this race, take a look at the hole in the ground at 21st and Bryant Streets in the Mission District. Five years ago that was a thriving artist community, a warehouse space where some 60 sculptors, photographers, painters, and the like were able to rent studios at low rates to do their work. Then a developer came along and waved a bunch of campaign money in Brown's face, and the mayor-appointed Planning Commission approved a plan to demolish the studios to make way for a big new dot-com office building that was way out of scale for the neighborhood. The neighbors appealed to the supervisors – and the at-large board, controlled by Brown allies, sided with the developers.

The wrecking ball swung. The artists were scattered to the four winds. Then the boom went bust, the developers ran out of money, and all that's left is a big, ugly hole in the ground that represents all that was and is wrong with Brown's development policies.

When the economy rebounds, the developers will come back and target another neighborhood – maybe the Castro District. Maybe Noe Valley. Maybe somewhere else. And a totally inappropriate project will threaten to destroy homes, or nonprofit space, or artist studios. And the Board of Supervisors will get the final call, with a big, rich developer throwing campaign money around, twisting political arms, and sending the top lobbyists in town over to City Hall to wire the vote.

If their records and histories are any indication, Dufty will go along with the deal. Hansen will vote against it. That's what this race is about.