S.F. Mayor Daniel Lurie will loom large over the city's next recall fight

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie finds himself in a difficult position now that the campaign to recall Supervisor Joel Engardio has officially qualified for the ballot.
Engardio, a staunch moderate, has been a loyal supporter of Lurie's policies, backing his legislative efforts and appearing by his side at news conferences. But the Sunset District supervisor is facing political peril: Organizers are seeking to oust Engardio over his enthusiasm for a major road closure that was unpopular among his constituents.
With the question of whether Engardio should be removed from office heading to Sunset voters in September, Lurie must decide whether to back Engardio and risk being on the losing side of the voters' will. Alternatively, the mayor could choose to stay out of the recall fight and send a potentially chilling message to Engardio and other allies.
'It's a dilemma,' said political consultant Eric Jaye. 'On the one hand, you risk your reputation with the voters. On the other hand, you risk your reputation with other politicians. And politicians like fellow politicians who are willing to stand up and be counted when the going gets tough for them.'
The animating issue behind the recall battle is the fact that Engardio supported the closure of the Upper Great Highway to cars and most voters in his district did not. Lurie opposed the successful ballot measure last year that permanently shuttered the road to vehicles to make way for Sunset Dunes Park. He also drew broad support for his mayoral campaign from voters throughout the west side, including the Sunset.
However, as mayor, Lurie has advanced a major rezoning of the west side to allow for denser housing construction in a swath of the city that has seen little residential development in recent decades. The move upset some west side residents, and it could be a factor in the effort to remove Engardio, who has made positive comments about the mayor's rezoning plan.
'I would be stunned if this vote didn't turn on that issue,' Jaye said. 'You have a constituency of people who are concerned about traffic and a constituency of people concerned about Engardio ignoring the will of his district. We're going to see whether or not Engardio and Lurie are ignoring the will of neighborhood voters with their massive upzoning.'
But Todd David, a supporter of Engardio, doubted that any effort to link Lurie's rezoning initiative to the highway closure would be an effective recall strategy.
David was one of the principal organizers of Proposition K, the measure that permanently turned the Great Highway into a promenade for pedestrians, runners and cyclists. He said an attempt to combine the highway discontent with mayoral rezoning frustration would probably fail to win over voters who did not already sign the recall petition.
'You're not bringing along a whole bunch of new people,' he said. 'There are outliers who will never support an upzoning in their neighborhood that are just a 'no change' crew, and I think that 'no change' crew is the crew that signed the recall. Overwhelmingly, people support more new housing in their neighborhood, including the Sunset.'
So far, Lurie has not indicated how he might proceed. He has not weighed in on the recall qualifying for the ballot or signaled whether he will publicly back Engardio in the September election. In an earlier interview with the Chronicle, he said that, when it came to the Great Highway closure, he 'understand(s) everybody's concerns … but as a city, we have to move forward.'
'We will continue to monitor and make adjustments where we can as we see any impacts,' Lurie said.
Engardio, meanwhile, told the Chronicle on Friday that he was 'in touch with the mayor and his team and we will have conversations soon.'
'I've been working closely with the mayor to pass legislation that addresses pressing issues that Sunset residents care about like public safety, housing, and our local economy,' he said in a statement.
If Engardio were to be removed by voters in his district, the mayor would face another hard choice. At that point, he'd be tasked with appointing Engardio's successor.
The decision would allow Lurie to handpick someone aligned with him, ensuring that the Board of Supervisors' political balance does not shift in the short term. But Lurie would also need to be mindful of the fact that the appointee would serve only until an election in June.
The mayoral appointee would presumably run in that election, but they could face stiff competition from a progressive eager to build off the recall momentum to recapture the seat. When Engardio won the district in 2022, he defeated progressive Supervisor Gordon Mar by just 460 votes. So Lurie would probably want to appoint an Engardio-like moderate who doesn't have Engardio's political baggage from the Great Highway closure.
'The mayor is doing an incredible job, and he is able to get a lot done because he has a majority of pro-growth, pro-safety people on the board' of supervisors, said Sachin Agarwal, a co-founder of the moderate group Grow SF that supported Engardio's 2022 supervisor run. 'The most important thing we can do is continue to have that majority, and whether that's Joel or someone the mayor supports, we need someone who is focused on the basics.'
Regardless of what Lurie does, David, the Engardio supporter, said he thinks the embattled supervisor can prevail by pointing to the ways he's tried to deliver on essential issues. For example, Engardio worked to secure funding for merchants to help them deal with impacts of controversial street construction, and he backed the return of algebra curriculum to eighth grade as well as the continuation of merit-based admissions at Lowell High School, David noted.
As for Lurie's potential role, David said the mayor has had 'an outstanding working relationship with the Board of Supervisors.'
'I think it would be in the mayor's interest to want to continue to have a strong ally on the board,' he said. 'If, God forbid, Joel got recalled, then the mayor also would get to appoint somebody, but that person's name ID would be much lower than Joel's going into election season.'