I'M NOT DONE with the local election yet – particularly since I keep finding bits of information I should have put out in my analysis last week (see "What Went Wrong," 11/10/04).

For starters, I'm still trying to figure out why San Francisco voters refused to support tax increases and an affordable-housing bond, even in a very high-turnout election when the popular mayor was behind them. At first it looked as if comparatively low turnout in liberal districts was in part to blame, and I still think that's a factor.

But I think there's something else at work here, something really important and disturbing. I think this city is still suffering from a Willie Brown hangover. A lot of people, even progressives, are worried about giving the city more money, because they suspect it'll be squandered on graft, corruption, and favoritism.

At the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council forum last week, pollster David Binder noted that fraud and malfeasance are by far the words most associated with government in national polls. The right wing has spent 20 years trying to convince Americans that "government isn't the solution, it's the problem" – and even in San Francisco, some of that sticks.

And politicians like Brown make it worse.

Whatever else he did, for good and ill, his most lasting legacy may well be a deep distrust of local government, even among the most progressive of voters. And as long as that lingers, it's gong to be hard to get more revenue to help this cash-starved city provide the public services all of us want and many of us need.

Then there's District 5, where both Ross Mirkarimi and Robert Haaland – two good people who were both eminently qualified to be supervisor – are unhappy about the final days of the campaign, when Mirkarimi put out a mailer showing him shaking hands with Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party put out a response accusing the Green Party leader of trying to trick voters.

And you know what? I don't think either of those mailers made any difference at all. The voters didn't care what party anyone was in.

And when I suggested that Haaland had more "institutional support," I wasn't being entirely fair. The truth is, as Steven T. Jones reports, the Bay Guardian endorsement (for Mirkarimi) was by far the most influential "institutional" factor in the race.

Tim Redmond