Proponents of recalling gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio say they’ve submitted enough signatures to hold a vote on ousting the Sunset neighborhood representative at City Hall. They turned in boxes of petitions Thursday afternoon following a rally.
This, as recall supporters deny a new allegation signatures were being collected under false pretenses, in the aftermath of the former head of the effort’s resignation.
The city’s elections department has 60 business days to count whether proponents have the 9,911 signatures required. If that threshold is met, an election date will be set. The recall campaign said at a City Hall news conference before delivering petitions May 22 that it had collected over 14,000.
“Those are numbers that represent people, that represent the voice of our commitment to democracy,” said Albert Chow, president of the neighborhood organization People of Parkside Sunset and owner of Great Wall Hardware. “We fought for something bigger than any one issue.”
But the issue top of mind for many speakers was Engardio’s support for a permanent closure of the upper stretch of the Great Highway to vehicle traffic. Voters passed Proposition K last November to close the portion of the roadway, and the area is now a city park called Sunset Dunes.
Selina Chu, a former school board candidate, said that Engardio, whom she described as a former friend, “failed to represent our Sunset community” before, during, and after the change. Before Prop K was approved by San Francisco voters, the highway had been open to vehicle traffic on weekdays as part of a compromise brokered by Engardio’s predecessor, supervisor Gordon Mar, between the factions warring over the stretch of road along Ocean Beach.
Engardio said in a 2022 debate with Mar that he supported the compromise that left the thoroughfare open to cars on weekdays.
Asked about this by the B.A.R. earlier this year, Engardio said that on his campaign website in 2022, he stated he supported the possibility of a park between Lincoln and Sloat, but that he "supported the compromise in 2022 because that was the best we had in the moment."
Engardio added that the other side "spent 2023 and much of 2024 trying to kill the weekend compromise," and anti-closure advocates supported a citywide vote on the Great Highway back in 2022 when it was Prop I, a measure they supported but that failed.
Chu claimed Engardio “bypassed the Sunset completely when he submitted a permanent closure plan without a single town hall meeting. When he was confronted, he pointed fingers and blamed others.”
“He ran on promises to represent our Sunset District 4 but acted against the very people who elected him,” she continued.
Despite the majority for Prop K citywide, not a single precinct in District 4 supported the measure, something pointed out by longtime westside resident Quentin L. Kopp, a former San Francisco supervisor, San Mateo County superior court judge, and a 1979 candidate for San Francisco mayor against the late mayor and U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein.
Kopp, 96, intoned, “Prop K was rammed down our throat by Mr. Engardio” and that’s “what he bestows on people who counted on him to protect their way of life.”
Otto Pippenger, a field director for the recall, said, “As a professional campaign operative, I have never seen commitment, engagement, turnout like this.”
Engardio responds
Reached for comment May 22, Engardio stated, “We need to wait for the Department of Elections to determine if there are enough valid signatures.”
“Right now, I’m doing the job voters elected me to do – fixing problems for residents, helping our small businesses, and working with Mayor [Daniel] Lurie to pass legislation that addresses public safety, housing, and our local economy,” Engardio stated. “I’m hosting a Budget 101 town hall next week to help residents understand our city’s complex budget and how it impacts them.”
That town hall will be May 29 at 6 p.m. at the Sunset Recreation Center, 2201 Lawton Street.
Engardio spokesperson Jason Galisatus said that the recall campaign only submitted 10,700 signatures (not over 14,000), which means 92% would have to be valid for the measure to qualify. Typically, around 80% of signatures have qualified in past successful recall petition efforts.
The spokesperson said several people have asked for their names to be removed, because they had signed it under the impression that it would reopen the Great Highway to vehicle traffic.
Indeed, James Smith, a District 7 resident and attorney, told the B.A.R. that on the weekend of May 10-11, he was outside a Taraval Street Walgreens when “a woman outside with a clipboard” said, “Do you want to sign this? It’s to put cars back on the Great Highway.”
Smith said he didn’t answer her, but when she insisted by asking again and handing the clipboard toward him, “I responded ‘No. I don’t want to put cars back on the Great Highway, and more importantly, that’s not what the ballot measure says,’ and then she didn’t say anything in response to that. It was crazy enough. It was clearly scripted.”
Smith said he wrote down the interaction because he was “stunned.” He said he is not part of Engardio’s campaign to stay in office.
Jamie Hughes, who had worked on former supervisor Aaron Peskin’s 2024 mayoral campaign, helped take over the recall effort from Vin Budhai after Budhai resigned May 13. Budhai did not return a request for comment for this report, but he stated to the San Francisco Standard that, “This decision comes after ongoing creative and strategic differences regarding the direction and execution of the effort. I wish the committee and all those involved in the campaign continued success as they carry this effort forward.”
Unnamed sources told the Standard it was a dispute over spending.
Pippenger said Smith’s story is “absolutely untrue,” and when asked, said it “has no relation to Vin’s departure.”
“This is all the result of a desperate last minute effort on Joel’s part to avoid democratic accountability; his team has been searching for, and encouraging, his core supporters to make such claims,” Pippenger told the B.A.R. “The substance of our campaign is, and always has been, about Joel’s betrayal of his constituents; a supervisor who feels he is responsible to a few oligarchs rather than a vast majority of his actual constituents. A recall obviously is only a recall, and Joel is trying to avoid this one with increasingly desperate grasps for a magic solution to undo this broad, popular, and frankly, deserved recall.”
Pippenger continued, “Today we’re focused on celebrating our incredible outcome, and looking forward to the next steps with great excitement!”
Engardio declined to comment on the allegation, but campaign strategist Josh Raznick stated to the B.A.R., “We are very concerned about the drumbeat of allegations we continue to hear about the recall [campaign] misleading and lying to voters, just like what James experienced. Deceit and lies seem to have become a hallmark of the recall campaign. Just today [May 21], another Sunset voter sent a request to the Department of Elections asking to withdraw their signature. I wonder how many people signed the recall on false pretenses?”
When the recall effort first launched, Engardio stated on social media and his campaign website that the effort would not result in the Great Highway reopening to vehicles.
Lucas Lux, president of Friends of Sunset Dunes, had a comment too.
“Sunset Dunes receives more visitors every weekend than the recall gathered signatures over 120 days,” Lux stated. “We'll wait to hear from the Department of Elections on whether the recall qualifies, but neither result will distract us from helping San Franciscans enjoy the beautiful coast at their new park.”
Updated, 5/22/25: This article has been updated with a statement from the Engardio campaign regarding its take on recall petitions sumbitted.
