A complaint filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission accuses the group campaigning to recall District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio of failing to properly report its spending and disclose funding sources of campaign materials. The commission has not yet indicated whether it is taking any action on the complaint, according to the attorney representing the filer.
Under local ordinance, the Ethics Commission may not publicly disclose whether it has received a complaint or is conducting an investigation, though filers are notified if their complaint is dropped or sustained. Campaign finance experts said that without further investigation, it’s unclear whether the alleged reporting failures constitute violations.
The complaint, filed last month by Leslie Beatrice Batz, alleges that the recall campaign produced clipboard signs, picket signs and flyers without disclosing their funding sources as required by state law and city ordinance. Batz is not officially affiliated with the campaign to support Engardio and oppose the recall, a Stand with Joel staffer said.
The complaint also claims that the recall committee’s first-month spending was not properly reported in its first filing and that a supplementary statement was filed a week late.
State and local laws specify disclosure requirements for signage, including the need to display the name of the committee that funded it and a statement directing the public to financial disclosures on the Ethics Commission website, sfethics.org. There are also strict formatting rules, requiring the text to be printed in at least 1o-point bold font with a reasonable contrast against the background.
The complaint includes several photos of individuals holding picket signs and clipboards with stickers featuring black letters on a yellow background that simply read “Recall Engardio.” Some picket signs have small, unreadable black lines in one corner but lack the required disclosure box identifying the committee that paid for them.
Vin Budhai, a lead organizer of the recall effort, denied that his team failed to include the required disclosures on its signage, saying, “We never printed a single sign that doesn’t have the correct disclaimer at the bottom.
“Maybe somebody else has a sign or whatever, but it wasn’t from us,” Budhai added.
Daniel Anderson, a San Francisco-based political consultant, said campaign signage disclosure requirements depend on whether they are created by a registered political committee or private individuals. The rules do not apply to signs made by unaffiliated individuals contributing less than the dollar threshold at which committee registration is required.
Whether the yellow picket signs were produced by the committee or individuals is for the Ethics Commission to investigate. However, Anderson noted that it’s not unusual to see more homemade signs in recall efforts compared to traditional races like mayoral campaigns, where official signs are more common.
“These recall races elicit a lot of grassroots anger, so people make their own signs because they’re angry about stuff,” Anderson said.
The complaint also claims that the recall campaign reported only $133.56 worth of spending in January and later changed that figure to $476.59. The complaint described both figures as “strikingly low for any committee.”
“We assume they have not disclosed all of their expenditures,” said Peter Leoni, who represents Batz, arguing the costs for a big campaign to recall a supervisor should be higher. Leoni noted that the initial report, which was filed late, does not include typical items like legal counsel, printing costs or items such as T-shirts and clipboards featuring campaign slogans.
The spending “is low because we are grassroots,” Budhai said, who added that he would need to consult his team for details on the financial report.
The recall committee amended its report three times last week, adding $5,060.11 in costs for services it used but hadn’t paid that month, like staff time, petition circulation, and internet and email expenses. In that period, the “Stand with Joel” campaign reported $50,467.53 in expenses.
Filings with the Ethics Commission indicate that as of March 15, the recall campaign had raised $39,713.17 and spent $32,792.02, while the “Stand with Joel” campaign had raised $283,144 and spent $240,064.86.
The “Stand with Joel” campaign issued a press release accusing the recall committee of using frequent amendments to hide financial information, noting that the committee submitted seven amendments to its own spending disclosures in just over a month. Political consultants including Anderson could not determine whether the discrepancies indicated an attempt to conceal information, but noted that submitting amendments is common practice.
Jim Sutton, who represents the recall campaign and has been a campaign finance lawyer in San Francisco for more than 30 years, added that compared to other California cities, San Francisco requires more frequent filing of campaign statements—once every two weeks—when gathering signatures. This could lead to more errors and omissions, necessitating amendments, he said.
The recall campaign is led by individuals from the organization Open the Great Highway, which opposed Proposition K, the ballot measure passed last November to close the Upper Great Highway to motor vehicles. The group faced an ethics complaint in November for failing to properly register with the city despite likely having reached the donation and spending threshold that would require registration as a political committee. The status of that complaint is unclear. Budhai declined to comment on that complaint.
The complaint against the recall campaign is embedded below. Contact information has been redacted for privacy.
