VALLEJO, Calif.—A 45-year-old city councilman is set to become the San Francisco Bay area’s first openly gay mayor after he was declared the winner by only four votes on the same day he apologized for his arrest for public drunkenness.

The final results of the Nov. 6 election came in Nov. 20, just days after Mayor-elect Gary Cloutier was arrested behind the wheel of a Cadillac on suspicion of public intoxication outside a Palm Springs bar.

A recount was likely in Cloutier’s apparent 5,722 to 5,718 win over Osby Davis, 62, who would have been the first black mayor to lead the city of about 120,000 just north of San Francisco.

Gay rights advocates hailed Cloutier’s election as historic for a region known as a haven of tolerance for gays and lesbians.

“Anytime people across a city or a region vote for an openly gay candidate, they are saying a person’s sexual orientation doesn’t matter,” said Denis Dison, spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. “It shows Americans are fair-minded.”

Cloutier publicly apologized for the arrest before learning of the vote tally. He was arrested Nov. 18 after he allegedly emerged drunk from the bar and got into the driver’s seat of the car.