Oakland mayor has given up his populist ways

Jerry Brown faces quiet race
Critics contend Oakland mayor has given up his populist ways
Janine DeFao, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 4, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/04/MN233876.DTL



When Jerry Brown ran for mayor four years ago, the national media descended on Oakland to chronicle the latest incarnation of a political chameleon, the quirky former governor who would be mayor of San Francisco's gritty stepsister.

As 10 other candidates tried to elbow their way into the spotlight, a legion of Brown volunteers swarmed his waterfront district loft, drawn by his "power to the people" message.

Today, with a month to go before the March election, the Oakland mayor's race has caused barely a ripple. Only one candidate, former City Councilman Wilson Riles, is challenging the conventional wisdom that Brown is unbeatable. And candidate Brown's campaign is so low profile that its office is hidden on the eighth-floor of a downtown building.

In four years, Brown has swapped his call for sustainable development for an unrelenting pitch for downtown development. And the former KPFA radio host who railed against capitalism for "destroying living systems of the Earth . . .

and eroding the social fabric" has become an unapologetic cheerleader for bringing business and investment to town.

"As mayor, you have to recognize the reality of the capitalist system. The key to capitalism is capital," Brown said in a debate last month. "I'm not ashamed to say Oakland could benefit from more" of it.

Potholes, it seems, have made a pragmatist of the philosopher. And critics complain that a mayor who based his first campaign on neighborhood house meetings now is more likely to dine with developers.

"There's a dichotomy between what he believes and what he thinks is possible," said Matt Hummel, an artist and community activist who helped run Brown's first campaign but has been disappointed by his tenure.

"Once he was in office, it seems he stuck with the mundane and lost the ability to believe in the expansiveness of ideas," Hummel added. "He became an executive politician instead of a people's movement leader."

During his first campaign, Brown was raging against the machine, from the costly deal to lure the Raiders back, to a huge City Council pay raise. Today, critics say he is the machine, with nearly all of those council members signing his re-election papers.

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who ran against Brown four years ago, has become one of his strongest allies. De La Fuente had depicted Brown as a carpetbagger who didn't know Oakland well enough to lead it, but he has been impressed by Brown's more down-to-earth persona.

"He knows where 82nd Avenue is now," quipped De La Fuente. "He'd get lost going to debates. That doesn't happen anymore."


IN HIS BACKYARD
Before he became mayor, Brown went to court to fight plans for a luxury apartment complex in his neighborhood, saying the waterfront spot should be preserved as parkland.

Now, he counts the Landing's 282 apartments as the cornerstone of his plan to bring 10,000 new residents downtown. Redevelopment of the urban core, he argues, is better for the planet than suburban sprawl.

Candidate Brown kicked off his first run for mayor with a utopian Oakland "Ecopolis" plan. Modeled on an Italian hill town and envisioning solar generators and eco-farmers, the plan chided readers not to "confuse mere growth with genuine development." (The proposal was quietly put aside after being mocked as yet another "moonbeam" idea from a man who as governor had proposed that California launch its own satellite.)

Mayor Brown recently led the charge to roll back state-required environmental studies for downtown development projects, dismissing them as redundant, "incredibly onerous" red tape.

Brown has not changed his rhetoric on campaign finance, limiting donations to $100, as he did in his first mayoral campaign and his 1992 run for president, his third.

But in between, he made no apologies about teaming with state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, to collect nearly $500,000 -- including a single $50,000 donation -- to support their chosen candidates and causes in the March 2000 election, the most expensive in Oakland history. Among the measures was Brown's successful attempt to add mayoral appointees to the school board.

Critics called the fund raising typical machine politics. Brown said the crisis of "paralysis, cronyism and mediocrity" in the schools "fully justified" the tactic.


'OPPOSITION IDENTITY'
Brown denies that any of the actions he has taken as mayor contradict the philosophical positions he has espoused, and he dismisses his critics as "the same handful of people who have developed such an opposition identity."

But some of those critics are former supporters who say Brown abandoned his grassroots campaign theme of "Oaklanders First" as soon as he took office. Four years ago, 1,000 people volunteered for Brown's campaign. Today, his campaign puts the number at "well over 100."

"We expected that the keys of the city were going to be given to its residents," Hummel said. "The sad thing is, I don't think things have changed very much."

But the folks at Esther's Breakfast Club and Orbit Room in West Oakland don't feel Brown has forgotten them. He may not drop by as often as he did in his premayor days, and there's little evidence of improvement along Esther's well-worn stretch of Seventh Street. But much of the older, African American crowd is still backing Brown.

"You can walk the streets of West Oakland at night, and the shops are coming back to downtown," said Arthur Bobo, a longtime resident. "He did what he said he would do."

As for what he'll do next, Brown is being characteristically noncommittal. He recently hinted that his rumored run for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat, on the ballot in 2004, is unlikely now that she has said she will run for re- election.

Brown said he intends to serve his full four-year term if re-elected, but he's making no promises.

"I'm not unaware that there's life after the mayor's office," he said. "Hopefully."

E-mail Janine DeFao at jdefao [at] sfchronicle.com.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 1