Poll Finds Drop in Support for Brown

SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor Willie Brown’s approval rating has fallen below 50% for the first time, with critics complaining about his handling of the city’s transit agency and the homeless, a San Francisco Examiner poll has found.

In a telephone survey of 633 San Francisco voters, 46% rated Brown’s job performance excellent or good, while 54% said he was doing a fair or poor job.

The 46% approval figure was down from the 55% that a similar Examiner poll found in May.

In the new poll, two of three surveyed said Brown hadn’t delivered on promises to fix the city’s transit agency, while almost half thought the homeless problem had worsened during his two years in office.

Both problems dogged the last two mayors and helped defeat them.

“Obviously, the honeymoon’s over, but any mayor of a big city is going to face the same kind of dissatisfaction,” said Supervisor Tom Ammiano.

Fascination with Brown’s style remains strong, however. The poll found that 30% of the voters find him charismatic, while 39% think he’s arrogant.

Brown, midway through his four-year term, is most popular with women, gays, blacks, those under 45 and Democrats, the poll found. Those same groups helped him defeat incumbent Frank Jordan in 1995 with 57% of the vote.

The poll was conducted Dec. 12-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.