Voters rejected all three members of Action Alameda, a slate of candidates opposed to the way city officials handled the recent redevelopment of the a historic theater and other redevelopment projects.

From the time the first returns came in, Mayor Beverly Johnson captured – and held – 60 percent of the vote. She handily beat her opponent, Alameda Action mayoral candidate and current council member Doug deHaan. He finished with 33 percent of the vote.

“The message from Alamedans is that the silent majority has spoken,” said Johnson who called the vote an “affirmation” of city’s current direction, despite criticism by challengers that she conducted too much city business behind closed doors.

Kenneth “Kenny the Clown” Kahn, a 41-year old part-time substitute teacher and working clown whose long-shot mayoral campaign received national attention, finished third with just over 7% of the vote.

Council incumbent Frank Matarrese and current Alameda Healthcare District Board President Lena Tam came out on top of a six-way race for two seats on the City Council, with 24 percent and 28 percent of respectively. Pat Bail, the leading Alameda Action candidate for council, finished near eight percentage points behind the winners, while Eugenie Thomson, fellow member of the challenger slate, finished fourth with 14 percent.

When asked about running against a slate, Johnson said that Alamedans “like individuals voices on the City Council,” and were leery of a group that would “vote as a team.”

Council member-elect Tam saw this year’s race in a similar way.

“This campaign was about bringing together different points of view and making sure that different points of view are heard as we go forward and planning Alameda’s future,” Tam said to a group of supporters on election night.

After the long campaign, Matarrese said he looked forward to getting back to his work on the council.

“We can always do things better, but we’re heading in the right direction,” said Matarrese.

On election night, Alameda Action candidates held a closed party for volunteers and supporters, and were not available for comment.

The long-shot mayoral candidate, Kahn, sat by himself in the quiet restaurant on Park Street election night, making colorful balloon animals and flowers for whoever came to him and shared his election night.

“Anyone who does public service, I have a great deal of admiration for,” said Kahn.

City voters were mixed about redevelopment and Alameda’s sense of self-identity—central issues in both the race for mayor and city council.

During the campaign Johnson and Matarrese touted redevelopment as a boon to this city of some 75,000. They supported the renovation of the city’s historic theater and expansion of the Alameda Town Centre shopping center as ways to bring in more revenue and increase the vitality of the island city.

Alameda Action ran a campaign that accused the current council and mayor running city government behind closed doors and ignoring the will of citizens in the redevelopment projects. The challengers saw the redevelopment projects as threat to Alameda’s small-town feel, saying new shops, like a proposed Target store, would flood the city with traffic and pose challenges to many of the small businesses that give Alameda much of its character.

Though Alameda mayoral and council races are non-partisan, Johnson, Matarrese and Tam brought in endorsements from prominent Senate President pro Tem Don Perata ,the Alameda County Democratic Party, and local labor unions.

Labor had provided Tuesday’s winners with an organized election campaign complete with a phone bank and supporters walking precincts. Alameda Action candidate relied on a much looser set of volunteer supporters.

This election season was marked by accusations of racism against deHaan and Bail fought out in the editorial pages of the Alameda Journal, while edits clips of the statements by the candidates were posted on the popular video site Youtube.com.

Nick Cabral, a supporter of both Johnson and Matarrese, summed up the election at the mayors election night celebration.

“We just went through the acid test.”