In a political battle eerily reminiscent of Richmond’s last mayoral campaign, Benicia City Council member Elizabeth Patterson fought off both big oil and out of town developers, as well as a flood of last minute hit pieces, to win the mayor’s office.  Her opponents outspent her at least six to one, probably more after all the reports are in.

She campaigned on a platform that included open, accessible and clean government, sustainable economic development, clean water and air, and adherence to the general plan's vision for a small, historic town with safe streets. Patterson chose not to accept campaign contributions from large out of town corporate businesses over whose financial interests she might be called upon to vote.

Patterson has been an active participant in the Local Government Commission, where I came to know her, and is a planner by profession and a strong advocate of smart growth and the Ahwahnee Principles.

Her victory should hearten those who dare to take on Big Oil and well-heeled developers.

As of now the vote count is: Patterson is up by 176 votes at 3,978 to Whitney's 3,801. The provisional ballots should not change the overall trend.

Following is an interesting editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The fight for one town's soul

Lois Kazakoff

Friday, November 9, 2007

Brutal election campaigns in California are almost always ignited by development concerns. The one scintilla of controversy in the otherwise sleepy San Francisco election was about parking, that is, about how the city will look and who it will serve in the future. In Benicia, where elections are typically a quiet and very civil exercise of democracy, development issues underlying the mayoral race flared into a big money and vitriolic campaign that - based on the most recent count - was swung by some 98 votes.

But with those few votes, Benicians have taken the first step toward reclaiming their town by rejecting all the influence money could buy.

"We barely hung onto our city," said Elizabeth Patterson, the front-running mayoral candidate, said. At present counting, Patterson has won by 98 votes but the final vote count won't be tallied until next week and her opponent has not yet conceded the race.

Benicia, a town of 28,000 on the Solano County side of the Carquinez Strait, is a family-oriented community filled with parks large and small. It enjoys water views and a landscape of rolling hills. Typically at election time, political signs sprout in every other front yard and city council candidates practice old-fashioned door-to-door campaigning.

Benicia has a colorful history: It was the state's first capital. It was the first army arsenal on the West Coast. During the Gold Rush, ships were built and hydraulic mining gear was manufactured on its banks. Today, it is home to two oil refineries, a port and a maker of life science research and diagnostic products.

The eye of the development storm swirling in and about the mayoral race is a 526-acre undeveloped parcel on the north side of town. The developer has twice proposed leveling the hills and building a commercial area as well as creating 80 industrial-use lots. Some residents fear the developer will bring in "big box" development. Others say it's a 1960s-concept suburban development that will attract low-end jobs offered at a time when Benicia needs a compact, energy efficient plan that preserves the topography and anticipates the future. The development should attract businesses to employ Benicia's mostly well-educated residents.

The lead-up to the election brought what is thought to be an unprecedented flow of outside campaign contributions into town. The money paid for a last-minute flurry of glossy political mailers that demonized one candidate and misrepresented the record of the other.

A week before the election, the fevered campaigning was punctuated by a strange retraction printed by the publisher of the local newspaper. The editor, it seemed, had broken the newpaper's policy "to not create news" by suggesting in his column that Patterson was the better candidate. The editor was suspended, then fired. That, in turn, prompted a resident to launch an online newspaper.

The big campaign spending from outside-the-city interests - according to city filings some $130,000 - went to support candidate Bill Whitney's mayoral bid. A coalition of builders paid to print and distribute last-minute hit-pieces that cast Patterson as a shrewish, litigious neighbor, and Whitney as a open-space preservationist. Nothing in the record, however, suggested Whitney ever was an open space advocate.

The candidates had taken an ethics pledge before the campaign began to eschew hit pieces and not to engage in personal attacks. Whitney has said the offensive mailers were produced by independent campaign committees without his knowledge. He didn't widely repudiate the misleading statements, however.

So much for the ethics pledge.

Yet, many would say, "that's politics. So what?"

Even in the rough-and-tumble world of big-city politics, campaigns don't often claim a record their candidate clearly did not have. Yet, the political tale of distortion, character assassination and big-money influence is familiar to many communities. In Benicia, it almost worked, except for those 98 votes.

The onus now is on Benicians - indeed, on citizens of any city targeted by outside interests who have a plan that the community doesn't necessarily want or share - to remain watchful and engaged.

Patterson, who spent $20,000 to win the mayor's seat, is already looking for ways to keep Benicians involved in the city's business and informed of future plans. And, she hopes, spared from any future poisonous campaigns.

"This (campaign) just showed how out of control this can get," she said. "Now we need to take the opportunity to get it right. The word we need to put out to outside interests is, 'We want you to do business in this city, but you're not going to run our city.' "

Lois Kazakoff is The Chronicle's deputy editorial page editor. You can e-mail her at lkazakoff@sfchronicle.com.