S.F.'s Great Highway recall fight begins: Did Joel Engardio mislead the Sunset?

San Francisco Chronicle​

a day ago

The campaign to recall San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio kicked off canvassing efforts Saturday at McCoppin Square Park along Taraval Street in the Sunset District, one month after successfully triggering a special election set for Sept. 16.
Armed with bright yellow pamphlets bearing Engardio's face and text in both English and Chinese that read 'He turned his back on the Sunset,' dozens of volunteers gathered to knock on doors and canvas their neighbors to vote for the recall.
The trouble for Engardio, a moderate elected out of District 4 in 2022, started when he championed a ballot measure that would permanently remove cars from a 2-mile stretch of the city's westernmost coastal boulevard, the Upper Great Highway, in favor of opening a park.
That measure, called Proposition K, passed with 55% of the citywide vote in the November election. But a majority of voters in westside precincts, where residents say they relied on the highway to drive around their neighborhood, rejected the measure.
Engardio has defended the measure that converted the highway into what's now called 'Sunset Dunes Park,' arguing it was a democratic opportunity to restore access to the coast for all residents. He said he's been his district's 'champion' since day one, pointing to his support for restoring algebra to eighth grade, adding police beat patrols to Irving Street and creating the Sunset Night Market.
The recall effort reflects not only the intense controversy over urban land use in San Francisco, but also the burgeoning political power of westside residents who feel their quality of life was harmed by what they perceive as a 'war on cars.'
'I've lived out here for years and I've never seen the Chinese community get so behind anything,' said Susan Chen, a 30-year Sunset resident and recall volunteer, at Saturday's canvassing effort.
Meanwhile, Engardio's supporters have argued that recalls, funded by taxpayer money, are a waste of city resources, that it's undemocratic to vote out a supervisor based on a single issue and that the Sunset Dunes Park has had a minimal impact on congestion.
A Chronicle data analysis of westside traffic data painted a complicated picture of how the highway closure has impacted traffic: Some commutes have become longer during rush hour as drivers are forced onto more congested alternative routes, especially Chain of Lakes Drive in Golden Gate Park. But some arteries showed no slowdowns at all.
Engardio said he's worked with SFMTA to alleviate the traffic impact. Those interventions include adding dual left and right turn lanes and a traffic signal at a key intersection to ease congestion on Chain of Lakes Drive.
Engardio's backers ramped up advertising and appealed for Mayor Daniel Lurie to support Engardio last week. Engardio has some high-profile supporters, including Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelmann, who posted on his X account Monday, 'Moderate SF Supervisor @JoelEngardio fixes potholes, supports small biz, brought back Algebra, and fights for what's right no matter how high the personal stakes.' Stoppelmann, who donated $175,000 to the 'Stand with Joel' anti-recall campaign, added that Lurie should back Engardio.
Lurie has, so far, not taken a public stance on the recall effort against Engardio. If he is recalled, it will fall on Lurie to pick his replacement.
'This recall is wasteful and threatens to derail all the progress that's been made to tackle the city's biggest challenges,' said Joe Arellano, spokesperson for the Stop the Recall campaign, in a statement, adding that 'Joel will be out knocking on doors and earning votes, like a true public servant.'
Arellano also called the recall effort 'GOP-backed,' pointing to an email sent out by the San Francisco Republican Party this week that encouraged followers to join Saturday's rally.
Jamie Hughes, one of the lead organizers for the recall, said that the effort includes 'everybody from every ideology' and that the group tries 'to stay away from labels.' Hughes is an ally of former progressive San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin. He said the recall campaign isn't coordinating with the Republican Party and argued that GOP support shows that the recall is drawing people from all sides of the political spectrum.
That's because, in his words, 'Joel messed up.'
Recall proponents said the recall isn't only about the Great Highway, but how Engardio's behavior during the past year showed what they consider to be a lack of transparency, accountability and representation.
John Higgins, a Sunset resident, said he never even used the Great Highway and is not looking to reopen it, but he felt Engardio lied about his stance. He pointed to how Engardio, alongside four other city supervisors, submitted a proposal to place Proposition K on the ballot on June 18, 2024, the last possible day for them to do so.
'These are shady methods,' Higgins said. Many recall proponents said they were taken by surprise, only learning about Engardio's proposal through news articles, and were upset that Engardio never held town halls prior to placing the issue on the ballot. Many said they thought Engardio had lied to them because, in 2022, while campaigning against then-incumbent District 4 supervisor Gordon Mar, he had said he supported what was then the status quo of pedestrianizing the highway on weekends only.
'Had he told this district when he was running for supervisor that he was going to close down the Great Highway 24/7, he would never have been elected,' Chen said.
Engardio rejected that characterization. He supported the status quo in 2022, he said, compared to the alternative at the time, which was a ballot measure to open the Great Highway to cars 24/7. He said he had told voters he didn't want to rule out the option of a permanent park in place of the highway when campaigning in 2022. He also posted on X, then known as Twitter, in December 2022, after being elected, 'I believe the future is a permanent oceanside park.'
Those explanations ring hollow to Selena Chu, who had campaigned to elect Engardio in 2022, believing he supported the compromise of keeping the highway open to cars on weekdays.
'We felt our voice was heard and that's why we advocated for this person,' Chu, a recall organizer, said. 'It was a personal betrayal and it was also a betrayal to the community. This was a guy I had advocated for for two years.'
As Chu walked down 22nd Avenue Saturday, a fellow Sunset resident, spotting Chu's Recall Engardio sign, started clapping.
'Everything he's done has been underhanded,' Gene Pulliam, who's lived in the Sunset for 60 years, said to Chu. 'He put the paperwork in the last week or something. That's just wrong.'