As they gear up for next year's district elections, defeated mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano's youthful and largely white activists need to reach out to the ethnic neighborhoods of the city. And the good news is they already have a foothold among Latinos, reports PNS associate editor Alfonso Serrano. Serrano is also an editor of NCMonline.com, a multi-ethnic news media web site.

If Mayor Willie Brown's defeated rival Tom Ammiano intends to sustain his youthful and largely white progressive movement to change San Francisco politics, he needs to start connecting to the ethnic neighborhoods of the city. And the good news for Ammiano is that Latinos may be his key bridge.

San Francisco Department of Elections tallies showed Ammiano won in the city's predominantly Latino Mission District by 66 percent to Willie Brown's 34 percent, and enjoyed similar leads in other neighborhoods where Latinos live. An informal exit poll in the Mission District showed that voters chose Ammiano over Brown by 10 to 2.

"Tom's campaign gave us a voice and I haven't stopped celebrating that," said Lucrecia Miranda, 33, who couldn't vote but volunteered her free time in recent weeks to campaign for Ammiano.

"He gave people like me renewed faith," she added. "The San Francisco that brought us here can continue to exist, but that won't happen unless we all speak out."

In a neighborhood that has seen head-spinning transformation in recent years, Ammiano's promise to protect tenant rights and fight gentrification resonated with Latinos, young and old. They represent a sector of the population that feels increasingly disenfranchised, and alienated from the decisions being made in City Hall.

"Ammiano is a minority ‹ he's gay ‹ and that unites us," said life-long Mission resident Elena Durán, 31, who voted for Brown during last month's primaries but changed her mind in the run-off election. "He's involved in the community and that's important for me because the mayor hasn't done enough for the Mission."

Ammiano's promise to stand up for low-income communities, including his vow to raise the city's minimum wage, hit home with Latino residents who perceive Ammiano as a man of integrity.

"He spoke to our issues, including tenant's rights and immigrant rights, and he involved us in addressing those issues," said Rene Saucedo, executive director of Mission-based La Raza Centro Legal. "The Latino community could tell he was genuine."

"I voted for Ammiano because of his stance on rent," added Aldo, 31, who was raised in the Mission. "And I believe in Ammiano's authenticity. He doesn't overshadow the real issues with showmanship."

With this week's elections behind them, Mission-based Latinos are now focusing on the road ahead ‹ and for many, that path leads to next year's district elections.

"The movement surrounding Ammiano's campaign has inspired us to think about district elections and allowed us to form a coalition with groups that wouldn't have come together," added Saucedo, a member of the newly formed Coalition of People of Color for Tom Ammiano.

The group, which includes members from the city's Latino, Chinese, African-American and Filipino communities, plans to meet next January to take stock of the recent campaign and strategize for what to do to keep the coalition together.

"His campaign facilitated that," added Saucedo. "When a number of minority communities come together like that, it's exciting."