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San Francisco Chronicle
24-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Engardio recall to make S.F. ballot with enough signatures verified, organizers say
San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio, who came to prominence by ousting officials through recall campaigns, now appears all but certain to face his own after recall organizers said Saturday that city election officials verified that more than 99% of signatures they sampled Friday were valid. 'I feel like David beat Goliath,' said Albert Chow, one of the organizers of the recall. 'No one told us we had a chance in hell to pull this off.' Campaign organizers needed 9,911 valid signatures from registered voters in District 4 by May 22 to qualify for a recall election. The recall campaign ultimately collected about 14,000 signatures, and by the end of Thursday had submitted just under 11,000 signatures to the San Francisco Elections Department that it had validated internally. 'This was the definition of grassroots effort,' Chow said. 'We went through a ton of effort to prescreen every signature before turning it over' to the elections department. Jamie Hughes, who is running the recall, said the sample narrowly missed immediate qualification because of a duplicate signature. Now, the Department of Elections will have to verify every one of the submitted signatures, Hughes said, which could take several weeks. 'We were pretty confident in our validation process, and we spent a lot of time on it, especially over the past week,' he said, adding that he was 'pretty confident' that after the counting was complete, the signature petition would meet the necessary bar to be placed on the ballot. Engardio, who had angered many of his constituents by endorsing Proposition K, which closes a stretch of the Great Highway to create the Sunset Dunes park, said in a written statement that he understood community concerns and was working with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to improve traffic and pedestrian safety along with other constituent services. Engardio said he was confident that even if the recall measure qualified for a vote, his constituents would oppose it. 'I supported an open and transparent democratic process where everyone had an equal say at the ballot box. And everyone had ample opportunity to campaign for and against the issue,' he said. 'I invite people to explore Sunset Dunes and our coast in new ways. The coast belongs to everyone and now it's more accessible to people than ever.' Engardio also criticized the recall effort, which he said would not reopen the Great Highway and sets a 'bad precedent' for recalling elected officials over policy disagreements. 'If there's a recall every time we disagree with one issue, we won't have a functioning government,' he said. Engardio, a former journalist, was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022, after capitalizing on his support for the successful 2022 recall of several school board members and District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Engardio won the District 4 seat after three previous unsuccessful campaigns for supervisor. A former journalist, he campaigned on a platform of public safety and transparency. But Engardio infuriated many in his district after sponsoring and voting for the initiative to close a 2-mile stretch of the city's westernmost coastal boulevard, the Upper Great Highway, to cars to create a park. Prop K was opposed by a majority of voters in the Sunset and Richmond districts, the neighborhoods closest to the Great Highway, although it passed with more than 54% of the vote citywide. The measure spurred a lawsuit even before the park opened on April 12, and west side residents called the closure of the highway a 'war on cars' that would harm their quality of life and increase commute times. Engardio previously defended his vote by arguing that voters across the city deserved to weigh in on the proposition to close the Upper Great Highway and make it a park and argued that attempting to recall an elected official over a single vote wasn't 'helpful to us moving forward as a city.' That argument, Chow said, missed the point. 'We're firing Engardio because he messed with the community,' Chow said. 'He went against the community even when he was told not to do so.' Chow and others were particularly angered after seeing Engardio's financial backing, including high-profile support from Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who donated $125,000 to the supervisor's cause. 'His constituency is tech billionaires, not D4 residents,' Chow said. 'This is about taking out someone not working for the community who voted for him.'
San Francisco Chronicle
24-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
People love the new Great Highway park. Do they love it enough to spare Supervisor Joel Engardio?
What controversy? Being able to take a snooze in a beachfront hammock on a sunny afternoon has made all the turmoil over closing the Upper Great Highway to create Sunset Dunes, San Francisco's newest park, worth it. At least it did for Fred Reynolds, who lives nearby, when I spoke to him on a recent Saturday. 'I thought it worked very well during COVID,' Reynolds said of the pandemic closure of the roadway. 'So, it seems like a natural progression. I think it's turning out to be a great asset for the city.' Now the question is if Reynolds' neighbors feel similarly enough about the park and its new amenities to extinguish their political furor. While San Francisco voted to pass Prop K in November, closing the Great Highway to cars, Sunset residents overwhelmingly opposed the measure — and responded to its passage by revolting against their supervisor, Joel Engardio, who championed the roadway's closure. The campaign to recall Engardio said it had enough petition signatures from District 4 residents by Thursday's deadline to submit to the San Francisco Elections Department for a ballot measure. If the signatures are certified, the department must hold a recall election 105 to 120 days afterward. There's also a lawsuit seeking to reopen the Great Highway and the possibility of a ballot measure to reverse Prop K. The recall campaign also opened another front in the city's moderate-progressive political war. Meanwhile, Sunset Dunes park, the source of all this acrimony, opened officially to great fanfare on April 12. Politics aside, it's still doing well. Sunset Dunes is still largely a four-lane road. There's new murals, paintings on the asphalt, sculptures and some added amenities, such as hammocks and tree trunks repurposed into seating. That's enough for Sunset Dunes to become the third most-visited park in the city during the week, averaging 3,400 visitors a day, and fourth overall on weekends, averaging 7,800 visitors a day, according to the Recreation and Park Department. 'I've been coming out on the weekends pretty much, but I want to start coming out at night every day just for exercise, too,' Sunset resident Osmond Li said after trying out a piano set up for visitors. So far, 62% of the visitors to Sunset Dunes are from San Francisco, and 35% of them are from the adjacent Sunset, Parkside and West Portal neighborhoods, according to the Recreation and Park Department's sensors that can track cell phone registrations. A 'honeymoon' surge to a new park is normal, but 'weekday consistency suggests lasting success. Our numbers there have been higher than expected,' said Tamara Barak Aparton, a spokesperson for the Recreation and Park Department. Is all that foot traffic translating into more sales for area businesses? It's probably too early for anything conclusive, but I checked with a couple of businesses I talked to just after the November election. Andytown Coffee Roasters co-owner Lauren Crabbe said her count of foot traffic at her Outer Sunset shops is up 20% over last year, compared to 5% at her Richmond District location. 'There's obviously something going on there beyond just the weather if we're seeing one neighborhood performing better than the other,' Crabbe said. At Aqua Surf Shop in the Sunset, store manager Dagan Ministero, who opposed Prop K, said he hasn't had an influx of customers since the park opened. 'I don't know if it's just the nation overall, but business is kind of down these days,' Ministero said. 'I haven't seen an increase.' Traffic congestion was one of the chief concerns for Ministero and many opposed to closing the Great Highway. Traffic is at or below pre-pandemic levels on the lower Great Highway adjacent to the park and nearby 46th Avenue, according to monitors set up by the group Friends of Sunset Dunes. However, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is collecting more comprehensive data on the area's traffic conditions that it expects to release this summer, according to Parisa Safarzadeh, a spokesperson for the agency. 'We do anticipate that with every road change there is an adjustment period,' Safarzadeh said, noting that new traffic patterns and potential problems become clearer after drivers settle into routines. To help traffic flow, there are new stoplights at Lincoln Way and 41st Avenue, and at Sloat and Skyline boulevards. Sunset Boulevard, the closest major north-south route, has been repaved. Speed bumps were added to some streets near the Great Highway to discourage cut-through traffic. Safarzadeh said traffic data will be evaluated to determine if further changes are needed. 'It's too early to even understand what that would look like.' Drivers accustomed to using the closed 2-mile stretch of the Upper Great Highway from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard will bear the brunt of these changes. Anecdotal evidence suggests commutes could be longer and not everybody is happy. Ministero said he's witnessed several fender benders in the area that he attributed to an uptick in traffic and that better infrastructure changes should have been in place before the closure. 'I feel like it was kind of putting the cart before the horse,' Ministero said. Despite his opposition to the Great Highway's closure, Ministero, who lives in the Richmond, said he loves the new public space and surfs the area almost daily, despite the 'problematic' traffic. Sunset voters who felt betrayed by Engardio now appear to have a chance at retribution by recalling him. Or can the new park win them over before Election Day? Either way, the park will remain. We can throw Engardio out and relitigate this at the polls and the courts. But to what end? Engardio has a vested interest in making sure Sunset Dunes is a success, so ousting him could jeopardize that. No doubt, commuters will be inconvenienced. I live in the Sunset, and I'll be one of them, too, when I drive. We should make sure the city upholds its responsibility to make traffic improvements. Because in the end, Sunset Dunes could become a great city asset, and that's what we should all want. Harry Mok is an assistant editor, editorial board member and columnist for the Opinion section.
San Francisco Chronicle
22-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Campaign to oust S.F. Supe Engardio says it has needed signatures for recall
The campaign to recall San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio over his support for the permanent closure of the Upper Great Highway to cars has collected 14,000 signatures to turn over to the San Francisco Elections Department for review, campaign leader Jamie Hughes told the Chronicle Wednesday evening. The campaign needed 9,911 signatures from registered voters in District 4 by May 22 and exceeded that minimum, Hughes said. District 4, which Engardio represents, encompasses the Sunset District. The recall campaign will submit the signatures to the Elections Department Thursday to begin what could be a dayslong process by the department to certify that sufficient valid signatures were collected before a recall election is called. The department must hold an election not less than 105 days and not more than 120 days from the date of calling an election. Elections officials will take a random sampling of 5% of the collected signatures and check if they are from registered District 4 voters. If the sampling shows the proportion of valid signatures is more than 110% of the required number, then election officials will declare the recall petition successful, according to Elections Director John Arntz. If it is computed to be between 90% to 110% of the required number, elections officials will check if every single submitted signature is from a registered District 4 voter. Hughes said 90% of the collected signatures came from the volunteer effort. The remainder came from paid signature gatherers. 'This campaign has been the definition of grassroots and District 4 has really come together to make their voices heard,' Hughes said. Hughes, an ally of former progressive Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, took the helm of the recall effort after former leader Vin Budhai stepped down last week, citing 'strategic differences.' Reached Wednesday night, Engardio said it's too soon to know if the recall has qualified for the ballot and urged people to wait for the Elections Department to determine if there are enough valid signatures. 'In the meantime, I'm continuing to do my job fixing problems for residents, supporting small businesses, and working with Mayor Lurie to pass legislation that addresses pressing issues on public safety, housing, and our local economy,' Engardio said. If the recall qualifies for an election, Engardio said he is 'confident' that a majority of Sunset voters will oppose it. He said that recalling him won't reopen the Great Highway to cars and sets a 'bad precedent' for recalling officials over a 'single policy disagreement.' The recall effort was launched by Budhai and Sunset District residents outraged by Engardio's effort last year to champion a ballot measure to permanently close a two-mile stretch of the city's westernmost coastal boulevard, the Upper Great Highway, to cars in order to create a park. During last November's election, the measure, called Proposition K, was opposed by a majority of voters in the Sunset and Richmond districts, the neighborhoods closest to the Great Highway, although it passed with more than 54% of the vote citywide. The measure has invited a lawsuit even as the park opened on April 12. Westside residents called the closure of the highway a 'war on cars' that would harm their quality of life, saying they relied on the Upper Great Highway to get around their neighborhood. Recall supporters have said commute times have increased on the westside since. 'I believe closing the highway was a total mistake,' Tommy Yang, a Sunset resident and owner of Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant, said during an April 22 recall rally in the Sunset in Mandarin. 'You are not watching out for Sunset residents,' he said, referring to Engardio. Engardio supporters have backed his effort to create a park for all San Franciscans to enjoy. Others said recalls are undemocratic and a waste of money, as well as argued it isn't worth recalling Engardio over, given his other efforts to champion westside interests. 'The city's got bigger problems and if we're focusing tax dollars on recalling Engardio, I think it's a dumb effort,' Sunset resident and business owner Lareina Chu previously told the Chronicle, pointing out the city is already having a municipal election next year where voters could decide to oust Engardio. 'I think he's done a good job.'
